1008 THE COMPLETE GRAZIER. BOOK xr. 



and piggery. The heaps may be tended and augmented at odd times, 

 when no other business requiring particular attention stands in the 

 way. The dung-meer adjacent to the house, especially, may be easily 

 made the receptacle of various rich and fertilizing ingredients besides 

 dung. Thus, the scrapings of the yard after rain has fallen may be 

 advantageously thrown in, as also may some of the nearest earth, 

 swamp mud, straw, weeds, the dung of fowls, soot and ashes, shells, 

 lime, and bones, the sweepings of the kitchen, woollen rags, old useless 

 brine, urine, and in short, almost any animal or vegetable substance. 

 The dung-heap contiguous to the barn or cow-houses may be aug- 

 mented with some of the nearest soil, mud, weeds, &c. 



The process of fermentation will not take place so evenly and 

 rapidly as it ought, unless the heaps are shovelled over once or twice 

 in the course of the summer, in order that the various ingredients may 

 become more intimately mixed and mellowed, and consequently the 

 sooner fit for use. 



It is, lastly, useful to have good roads all round the farmyard and 

 dung-pit; as farmers suffer loss by having their carts and cattle 

 struggling through piles of straw, in farmyards where this is neglected. 



In all cases, and under all systems, the objects to be kept in view 

 are, that no refuse, be it fluid or solid, animal, vegetable, or mineral, 

 shall be wasted ; that the fertilising properties of the manure shall be 

 as much concentrated and as far retained as possible ; that the manure 

 shall be so made that it may be preserved as long or as short a time as 

 is requisite, and so combined and managed that, when applied, it shall 

 be of that nature, and in that condition, which will best ameliorate the 

 soil and promote the vegetation of the crop for which it is destined. 



Covered or roofed-in dung-sluices have been introduced on many 

 farms. The sides of these are left open the flooring, water-tight, 

 slopes from the corners to the centre, at which point there is a grating 

 leading to a liquid manure tank, which thus receives the drainings oi 

 the manures. A pipe also leads the liquid manure from., the various 

 buildings or stables to the tank, and by a simple arrangement of a 

 secondary but small tank, called a " settling tank," the solid matters 

 are arrested and retained in this, while by a pipe properly arranged, 

 the contents of the tank can be pumped up as desired. There are 

 various other ways of arranging the relationship of the tank and the 

 upper dung sluice, but the above indicates the general principle. The 

 dung is retained by low walls with gates at convenient points and 

 the roof is supported by vertical uprights. 



ON THE APPLICATION OF DUNG. A great deal has been said and 

 written about the use of dung, about the crops to which it is best 

 applied, the condition in which it should be used, the time of year at 

 which it should be put on, the quantity to be applied per acre, and the 

 mode of spreading it or ploughing it in. Seeing, however, that dung 

 is a universal manure and may be used in various ways for various 

 purposes, it is not strange that so much has been written concerning it. 



" Much diversity of opinion exists amongst farmers as to the state in 



