192 A PRACTICAL TREATISE 



land is then generally sown with oats, followed by barley or 

 potatoes, and the third year by wheat. The fourth year the 

 land is laid down either with oats or barley, clover and grasses, 

 and the crops are said to be very great. It is also found that 

 its effects remain longer on the land than marl; and although 

 that which is over-marled is spoiled for grass, yet that never 

 happens to sea mud. In many parts of Scotland it has also 

 been found to answer very well for the improvement of moss ; 

 upon which, after it has been well drained, the sleech is laid, 

 to the amount of 100 single-horse cart-loads per acre. To 

 this, however, we must add, that the repetition of it in large 

 quantities fails of its former effects. In Sussex it has been 

 used to the extent of 1200 to 1300 bushels per acre; but on 

 those farms where it has been too frequently used, and which 

 are thus said to have been "over-dosed," it is no longer found 

 to be of any service, (a) 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



MANURES IN GENERAL. PUTRESCENT, MINERAL, AND 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



It is notorious that a great number of farmers are either 

 ignorant of the most judicious mode of application, or negligent 

 of the means of increase and preservation. The latter remark 

 applies more especially to farm-yard manure, which no one can 

 ride over any part of the country without seeing wasted — dung 

 carted out of the yards and thrown up by the side of some lane 

 without any foundation or further care, until, perhaps, after 

 having become mouldy and fire-fanged, it is at length turned 

 over, while the best part of its juices have been allowed to run 

 into the ditches, or to stagnate around the heaps; thus, neither 

 assisting the proper fermentation of the dung, nor mixing the 

 heap at such regular periods as to ensure its being all of one 

 quality.* 



(a) [The Albany Cultivator — good authority — says in regard to muck. — 

 "Mix it with unleached ashes, at tlie rate of from one to three bushels pel 

 cart-load. Let it lie in a heap a month, if practicable, before used."] 



*On this, however, the following remark has been inserted in the Report 



