ON MANURES. 185 



ground. From 30 to 40 bushels is the quantity usually 

 applied to an acre. 



Tanners' Bark. — The refuse of the tanneries consists partly 

 of the same substances as fellmongers' poake; but when the 

 bark is used alone, it is chiefly employed in gardens, as a 

 covering for the beds of pineries, and in that state has been 

 found quite ineffectual as manure. It has, however, in some 

 instances, been made up as a compost with lime, chalk, earth, 

 and dung, and laid upon strong land with considerable advan- 

 tage. It might, indeed, be supposed that the w^hole value of 

 the mixture consisted in the latter article; but, according to a 

 long account of a series of experiments made by Mr. Malcolm, 

 and recorded in his Compendium of Modern Husbandry, the 

 bark would appear, by the comparative trials, to have had 

 much good effect in the composition. When mixed with lime, 

 great care is however requisite to prevent it from catching fire 

 during its fermentation, for which purpose it should be so com- 

 pletely covered with earth as wholly to exclude the air. It 

 will, in some cases, particularly if much mixed with earth, 

 take three or four months to ferment; when it should be 

 turned over at least once; which further fermentation and 

 cooling will probably require a couple of months longer before 

 it can be in a fit state to be laid upon the land. As in many 

 cases it is such an incumbrance to the tanners, that they are 

 glad to get it taken off their premises without charge, it may 

 be worth the while of farmers in their neighbourhood to try its 

 effects. 



Woollen Rags and Furriers' Clippings. — Rags are some- 

 times used in considerable quantities upon light chalks and 

 gravelly soils, to which their retention of wet renders them 

 particularly applicable, and they continue to act so long as 

 they remain unrotted in the ground. They require to be cut 

 into pieces, and are sometimes spread upon clover-leys and 

 ploughed in for wheat when sown upon one ploughing. Their 

 chief use is, however, to lay them in hop grounds, for as they 

 act in the nature of a sponge, they preserve the plantations 

 in a constant state of moisture in the dry seasons, when in 

 land which has been manured with dung the hops have failed; 

 but in rainy seasons they, on the contrary, have been known 

 to do injury by creating mould. The usual method of thus 

 applying them is, to open the hills and place the rags round 

 the roots, a little below the surface, and immediately to cover 

 them with mould : a ton of rags being the usual quantity to an 



