34 A PRACTICAL TREATISE 



by which means they can be turned and got ready at different 

 periods, as occasion may require.* 



These pies — as they are provincially termed when thus 

 crusted over — if ready by the 1st of May, may be reasonably 

 expected to be in a fit condition to be laid on the summer fal- 

 lows by the latter end of July, though the time required for 

 their preparation must be governed by the strength of the 

 dung, the weather, and the exact period of its intended appli- 

 cation. Those formed during the summer months, unless the 

 dung be produced by horses and cattle kept in the yards by 

 soiling on green food, can seldom be collected and got ready 

 for use within the same season ; but when intended for turnips, 

 the manure should be carried out and lightly raised about six 

 weeks or two months before it is wanted, within ten days or a 

 fortnight of which time it should be very carefully turned. 



The operation of turning is also one that requires circum- 

 spection. This is often neglected until the heat of the mixen 

 is quite spent, its fermentation passed, and it is become 

 entirely rotten. To which glaring error is to be added the 

 carelessness employed in that labour by servants, who, in 

 turning it over, usually begin at one end, and throwing layer 

 upon layer as they cut them through, place them again in the 

 same order in which they found them, with this only differ- 

 ence, that the part which was at the top now becomes the bot- 

 tom. Thus it has been justly observed by Mr. JVIalcolm, that 

 ' the benefit which might have accrued to each ingredient by 

 their proper admixture is infallibly lost, because the dung has 

 been prevented from infusing any of its saline particles into 

 the mould, and when laid upon the land, instead of being a 

 body of invaluable manure, they are little better, as such, than 

 as if each ingredient had been immediately drawn from the 

 beds out of which they were originally taken.' All this may, 



* On this subject Mr. Cook is said to have lately expressed himself, at a 

 public dinner in Norfolk, to the follo<ving effect : — 'Having made a platform 

 of marl, 1 placed the inferior muck upjon it; the manure of the fat cattle 

 formed the third coating, and upon that the horse-dung as the fourth, and 

 ill about equal quantities. I then ploughed round it, threw up the earth, 

 and made a kind of coating over the whole to keep in the gas. Just before 

 sowhig, the heap was turned over; and thus, when the muck was in a 

 state of fermentation, it went into tlie drill. Let farmers follow this plan, 

 and give plenty of seed, and they will not find their crops of turnips to fail ; 

 the warmth of the manure would force the turnips out of the way of the fly 

 in less than eight-and-forty hours.' In Dr. Uigby's account of Holkham, 

 it is also stated that, by preparing manure iu this manner, Mr. Coke saves 

 no less than 500Z. per annum in the purchase of rape-cake as top-dress- 

 ings.— 3d edit., p. 56. 



