ON MANURES. 03 



the Norfolk Report, of a field newly laid down to grass, every 

 part of which proved very poor, except two acres on which 

 four wagon-loads of night-soil were spread directly, without 

 being mixed with any other manure. The field was fed ofif, 

 and the effect of the night-soil is said to have been so great, 

 that, ' while the rest of the field never seemed more than half 

 filled with useful plants, this part thickened surprisingly, and 

 grew most luxuriantly ; so much so, that the cattle, neglecting 

 the rest of the field, were perpetually feeding there, until by 

 autumn it was pared down, like a fine green lawn by the side 

 of a dusky, rough, ragged pasture.* In other accounts it is 

 indeed reported as 'the most capital manure, of all other 

 sorts, for pasture, two wagon-loads securing a carpet of herb- 

 age ;'f and no bad effect is perceptible on vegetables, though 

 kitchen-gardeners use it with profusion. It has been also 

 asserted that nice judges of vegetables can distinguish a very 

 unfavourable difference between the flavour of those grown in 

 the vicinity of large towns or in the open country, and this 

 they attribute partly to the use of night-soil ; but it certainly 

 communicates no unpleasant smell to the plants, nor even, 

 after a very few days, to the ground on which it has been laid, 

 for it is soon decomposed, and the effect complained of is 

 doubtless more owing to the rapidity of the growth when 

 forced by an excess of any stimulating manure, which renders 

 them insipid; and were market-gardeners more sparing of the 

 use of all dung, or were they to correct it into a compost by a 

 judicious mixture of lime and earth, or a small portion of 



*The same Survey also mentions the great improvement of a piece of 

 sterile pasture by the application of night-soil mixed up with pond-mud, in 

 the proportion of 7 wagion-loads of the former to 143 one-horse cart-loads 

 of the latter. The soil was first laid upon the mud, the men then cut a 

 trench through the heap, and throwing a small parcel into it, they worked 

 it all to pieces. The compost was afterwards spread over the field at the 

 total expense of 121. ; but at the present price of labour it would probably 

 amount to half as much more. 



t One wagon-load, containing 90 bushels of night-soil, costs in London 

 15s., to which is to be added the charge of carriage to the farms, to which it 

 is mostly conveyed by the Thames, or by canals. Much of it is used in 

 Essex, mixed with five times the quantity of fresh earth, and sometimes 

 together with an equal quantity of the muck and chalk, in which proportion 

 it is commonly used, at the rate of one wagon-load of night-soil ; and the 

 whole charge, including that of spreading, is calculated to be from 21. 13s. to 

 31. 3s. per acre. The common price of stable-dung in London is 2s. to 2g. 6d. 

 per hay-cart load, containing between 70 and bO cubical feet: that of street- 

 slop, called coW manure, is delivered by barges to the distance of about fifteen 

 miles, by the canals, or within reach of one tide by the river, at about 3s. 

 per ton. 



