ON MANURES. 17g 



Bald to have produced comparatively as good a crop as 12 of 

 farm-yard dung.* 



By this plan one ton of dung will ferment three tons of 

 peat; and wherever moss is only two or three miles distant 

 from the farm, this mode of raising manure can be conlidently 

 recommended as a great acquisition. His Lordship also tried 

 various experiments on the mixture of animal matter — such as 

 refuse fish, whale-blubber, and the scourings of the shambles — • 

 with peat, without the addition of any other substance, and 

 found that, in the course of about nine months, a compost 

 formed of one ton of animal substance and 10 or 12 tons of 

 peat, produced a compost of superior power to that^composed 

 with dung. He, however, states, that peat prepared with lime 

 alone is not capable of being decomposed when collected in a 

 heap, and has consequently not been found to answer as a 

 good manure; which opinion he supports upon chemical prin- 

 ciples, which we need not now discuss, as experience proves 

 that he is mistaken; for not only does peat, when compounded 

 with a small quantity of lime, obviously undergo the putrid 

 fermentation, but it is well known to many farmers that such 

 composts form excellent dressings, particularly for grass-lands. 

 In corroboration of which, there is an experiment recorded by 

 the Manchester Agricultural Society, stating, that a compost 

 of 119 tons of peat-moss and lime having been laid upon five 

 acres of a poor sandy soil, and harrowed in with oats, an 

 equal quantity of the same compost was laid upon five acres 

 of thin, poor clayey soil, and harrowed in with the seed, 

 which was likewise oats. The crop upon the sandy field was 

 uncommonly heavy; that on the clay land, though inferior, 

 was, however, very abundant, considering the state of the soil 

 previously to the application of the compost. f To this it may 

 be added, that lime will operate in composts when used upon 

 land which has been previously exhausted by the application 



*Gen.Rep. of Scotland, vol. ii. n. p. 550. In Holland's Survey of Cheshire, 

 it is also mentioned, that three tons of compost, made from moss and dung, 

 having been spread on part of a meadow, and three tons of rotten dung 

 upon an equal portion of the same field, it was found that, although the 

 grass on that part which was covered with dung only, came up as soon, and 

 upon the whole grew rather higher than that on the other part, yet the 

 latter was of a darker green, and yielded nearly an eighth more when it 

 came to be cut. 



t In Malcolm's Survey of Surrey, it is, however stated, that in one in- 

 stance, on a small piece of fallow sown with wheat, the application of a 

 compost of peat and lime only was manifestly pernicious. — Vol. ii. p. 198. 

 The proportions of which it is composed are not stated. 

 p2 



