ON MANURES. 



71 



trary, an excess of moisture deprives it entirely of effect. 

 Thus, the whole of the urine from a dwelling-house having 

 been daily thrown on a piece of pasture during three months 

 of the winter, it was found in the following summer to differ 

 but little from the state of the rest of the field — it having 

 suffered too much dilution from the rain to be capable of putre- 

 faction. But, in the following June, a week's urine being put 

 into ajar, and covered with a slate, where it remained until 

 it had completely undergone that stage, was then mixed with 

 four times its amount of water, and when sprinkled at pro- 

 per times on the same quantity of pasture, it soon occasioned 

 a luxuriant vegetation. It produces similar effects on green 

 vegetable crops — nourishmg them when applied in a diluted 

 state, but scorching them and destroying their tender herbage 

 so effectually when unmixed, as to impede their growth. 

 There is indeed but little doubt that nutritious manure of any 

 kind may be carried to an excess which becomes prejudicial 

 to vegetation, particularly in its early stages. Naismith 

 instances the steeping of three peas for tw«nty-four hours in 

 a teacupful of strong dung-juice, and three in plain water: 

 each three were planted half an inch deep in separate flower- 

 pots filled with garden mould, and the liquid in wl^ch they 

 had been steeped poured into the pots over them. Those 

 which had been steeped in plain water appeared above ground 

 thirty hours before the others. Both advanced, but those in 

 the dung-juice had the most weakly appearance. When the 

 plants were about four inches high, the lower leaves of those 

 fed by the dung-juice fell off; and in about four weeks after, 

 the plants died, though they were daily watered, while those 

 to which the water only had been administered continued 

 healthy. The haulm of a potatoe, too, the growth of which 

 was pretty well advanced, fell off soon after it had been well 

 wetted with urine in an advanced stage of putrefaction, and 

 even the root itself was found reduced to a pulp. It is, in 

 fact, of a scorching quality, and its application to growing 

 crops is not advisable during hot weather, unless mixed with 

 a large proportion of simple water: of course it will not ope- 

 rate in the like manner upon fiillow land, and it may be 

 applied whenever the ground is in a fit. state to absorb it 

 readily, but much of its effect may be lost if it be not laid on 

 at the time of sowing. 



There is probably no species of manure so generally ne- 

 glected, and yet so deserving of attention; for although the 



