ON MANURES. 55 



injury, and when the heat is so moderate as not to exhale its 

 volatile parts.* 



In all these cases the product is abundant, because the land, 

 though cold, yet grows good grass, and, whatever may be the 

 nature of the manure, sufficient is always laid upon it to secure 

 a crop; but it is only in the vicinity of the metropolis, or in 

 otlier great towr.s, and through means of purchased manure, 

 that such a supply can be obtained as that given to the land in 

 question. 



The use of compost of earth and farm-yard dung has been 

 used as an argument against its employment upon meadow- 

 land, because of the difficulty of its entrance into the soil, and 

 that pure dung has a more immediate effect upon the crop. 

 Upon land such as that just mentioned, the objection is well 

 founded ; but upon soils of a loose texture, the mixture of earth 

 — particularly of clay — with the dung, by increasing the bulk 

 to be laid upon the land, tends to bind it, and thus giving a 

 firm hold to the roots of the grass, the finer sorts, which either 

 have not strength enough to penetrate the ground, or the seeds 

 of which have lain dormant, suddenly spring up, and the sward 

 is thus improved. Of this a striking instance in point has 

 been related by Mr. Dawson of Frogden, who, ' having occa- 

 sion to carry a quantity of very fine black loam from a head- 

 ridge of old in-field land, to give the surface-water a free pas- 

 sage, it was laid upon out-field bent- grass-land adjoining, of 

 which it covered about a quarter of an acre fully an inch thick. 

 No grass-seeds were sown upon this new covering, yet white 

 clover and other fine grasses sprung up, and gradually 

 increased upon it; and the bent, upon which the loam was 

 laid, diminished so speedily, that very little of it remained in 

 the third year thereafter.' It is, however, well known that 

 the effect of dung is proportionately greater upon good tlian 

 upon bad land, and the difference is still more considerable 

 upon that which is under grass than what is arable; for 

 it is observable that the dung of animals has scarcely any 

 effect upon coarse pastures, but it perceptibly improves those 

 which are covered with the finer grasses, and is of more or 

 . J 



* Middlesex Report, 2d edit., pp. 286, 287, 377. In the Leicestershire 

 Report it is also said, 'Dung or compost should be laid on meadow-land 

 immediately after the hay is carried off; for as at that time the ground 13 

 generally the driest of any time of the year, carting on it will not cut the 

 turf: there is the least grass to destroy; it insures good aftermath ; and the 

 winter rains will wash all the manure into the soil, so that it will receive 

 the whole benefit of the dressing. 



F 



