74 A PRACTICAL TREATISE 



soil when laid on its surface, will have more effect upon grass- 

 land when applied in a fluid state than in a solid form. It 

 cannot, however, be denied that there are many instances 

 on record in which no such consequences of its application 

 have been remarked. Marsliall relates an experiment con- 

 ducted on his own farm with considerable care, in which the 

 common drainage of the farm-yard — of course including rain- 

 water — was laid upon two separate fields of young tares and 

 clover, grown u\K>n a sandy loam, at the rate of about 2500 

 gallons per acre: the liquor was of middling strength, very 

 high coloured and foul, but not puddly, and it was carried on 

 in wet weather. No perceptible advantage was, however, 

 observable on either those or the ensuing crops; but the 

 weather was not favourable. Some farmers, indeed, think 

 these washings fi-om the farm-yards, though of a brown colour, 

 are yet, in most instances, so diluted with rain, as not to be 

 worth the expense of carriage;* though other accounts of 

 dung-water say, that when permitted to trickle slowly upon 

 the sward of meadow-ground, it renders the grass soft and 

 luxuriant. In an experiment recorded in the Bath Papers, 

 two spots of meadow were equally measured, and watered 

 three times a week during a month together of nearly dry 

 weather — the one with dark-coloured stagnant water from a 

 pond, and the other with clear river- water, — at the end of 

 which time, the first w^as far better than the other. The crop 

 upon that part of the field which had the foul water was 

 strong and succulent, of a deep healthy green, and 18 inches 

 high; while the other, though thick and high, was yellowish, 

 weak, and faint. On being made into hay, and separately 

 kept, the former yielded nearly double the quantity and of 



♦ It is stated in the Rutland Report by Mr. Parkinson, that the black 

 water thus drained away from manure, has been tried frequently on land, 

 without effect. He himself tried it, by having a dung-hill made with a grip 

 cut round it, wuh a descent to a kind of reservoir at one end of the hill, for 

 this water to drain into, and then had it thrown back on that end, thinkin* 

 thereby to preserve the loss of strength in the manure. But he found that 

 when the manure which came from that side of the dung-hill was laid upon 

 the land, it was weaker than the other; and he therefore conclude*, — 'thit 

 when once this black water departs from the dung, that it is like lilood let 

 out of a vein, never to be applied again for the like purpose it was designed 

 for in its original state,'— t?urv. of Rutlandsh., p. 91. 



This, however, was doubtless occasioned by fresh fermentation being oc- 

 casioned by the dung being thus continually wetted, and thus losing its 

 strenmh by repeated exhalation ; but though it may be properly used as an 

 argument for not thus applying even the drainage from manure, unless it 

 should be in danger of becoming tire-fanged, yet that cannot be a motive for 

 allowing it to run to waste. 



