06 A PRACTICAL TREATISE 



wheat or barley, in the proportion of one wagon-load of night- 

 soil, containing as much as four horses can tiiirly draw, to the 

 acre; but it should be used more in the manner of a top-dress- 

 ing tlian buried in the soil. It has been laid on in the large 

 proportion of 40 double cart-loads, and has alterwards been 

 known to produce 5^ quarters per acre of spring-wheat, 

 besides an uncommonly luxuriant crop of rye-grass and clover 

 in the ensuing summer.* It is sometimes, also, mixed with 

 the yard-dung for the purpose of exciting fermentation : this, 

 however, is not advisable, for it produces its greatest effect 

 in an unfermented state, and when thus mixed, its power is 

 greatly lessened. 



It is likewise converted into powder for the purpose of ma- 

 nure in Paris, and is also used throughout many parts of the 

 Continent, but chiefly in the Netherlands, where, however, it 

 is more commonly employed exclusively in a liquid state ; of 

 the preparation of which we extract the following account 

 from the intelligent Report by Mr. Radcliff of the Agriculture 

 of Eastern and Western Flanders. 



Liquid Manure. — 'This consists of the urine of cattle, in 

 which rape-cake has been dissolved, and in which the night- 

 soil from the privies of the adjoining towns and villages has 

 also been blended. This is gradually collected in subterra- 

 neous vaults of brick- work, at the verge of the farm next to the 

 main road. Those receptacles are generally 40 feet long by 

 14 feet wide, and 7 or 8 feet deep, and in some cases are 

 contrived with the crown of the arch so much below the sur- 

 face of the ground, as to admit the plough to work over it. 

 An aperture is left in the side, through which the manure is 

 received from the cart by means of a shoot or trough ; and at 

 one end an opening is left to bring it up again by means of a 

 temporary pump, which delivers it into carts or barrels. 

 Another cistern, of double that size, is, however, for the most 

 part, formed under the range of stables, from each stall of which 

 the urine is conducted to a common grating, through which it 

 descends into the vault, from whence it is taken up by the 

 pump ; but in the best regulated there is a partition in the cis- 



* Farmer's Magazine, vol. xiv. p. 161. It will not escape observation thai 

 the amount of this manure wnnld have been better stated if the quantity had 

 been accurately ascertained in bushels ; but that is a trouble which few 

 farniers take, and information can only be given in the same manner in 

 which it is obtained. 



