196 A PRACTICAL TREATISE 



*We thus see that science now agrees with that practice 

 'which has been pursued for years with unexampled success. 

 It is consolatory to practitioners to think that their experience, 

 though unknowingly to them, has guided them to succcsfs on 

 really scientific principles. This agreement of experience 

 and science should teach every one that science and expe- 

 rience, and not science alone, ought to be made the tests to 

 try the accuracy of opinions; but unfortunately for the credit 

 of sciences, the test of accuracy hitherto, in the application of 

 putrescent manures, has not been submitted to practice.' 



We now not only beg to impress upon every farmer the 

 absolute necessity of guarding against the waste of any por- 

 tion of the farm dung, but also to take care that nothing in 

 the shape of refuse animal or vegetable substance be suflered 

 to be thrown away by his servants. Let a bed of sand, or any 

 earth except clay, be laid in some spot adjacent to the offices, 

 and upon it let every particle of offal collected from the pre- 

 mises be regularly thrown; to which add the sweepings of 

 the roads and lanes about the house, grass, turf, or rubbish dug 

 out of drains and ditches; every thing, in short, which, by de- 

 composition, can be converted into manure, and all of which 

 may be got together with very little trouble. Let the whole 

 of this be every now and then covered with the earth, between 

 two layers of which a small quantity of quicklime may be 

 placed, or sprinkled upon any vegetable substance, sucli as 

 leaves, tough haulm, fern, or any thing which cannot be easily 

 dissolved, and thus formed into a compost. Care must how- 

 ever be taken that the vegetative powers of the roots and 

 plants be completely destroyed before the compost is spread 

 upon the land, for if unskilfully prepared, they will shoot up 

 in the course of the ensuing season, and overrun the land with 

 weeds. Composts thus formed, whatever may be the ingre- 

 dients which they contain, will ever be found a most valuable 

 species of manure. The whole substance becomes one uniform 

 mass of nutritive matter, which may be either mixed with the 

 soil, or applied as a top-dressing, and, with proper attention, 

 may be got ready for application at any period of the year. 

 There are numberless receipts scattered throughout the wri- 

 tings of v^irious theorists, in which the quantity and the 

 quality of each ingredient in these various mixtures are as 

 accurately stated as if they were the medical prescriptions of 

 physicians; but these are mere quackeries which do not merit 

 the attention of practical men. 



