48 TRANSACTIONS. 



use of manure. If so, it was probably subsequent to the time when 

 he stipulated with Hercules to clean out his stable in one day, though 

 it had not been done for 30 years, notwithstanding he is reputed to 

 have kept 3000 oxen, and promised, if he would do so, to give him 

 one-tenth of his cattle. This, Hercules is said to have done, not, 

 however, after the way of modern times, but by turning the river Al- 

 pheus, through the stable, which immediately carried away the dung 

 and filth. The condition of many a modern farmer's stable would re- 

 mind one of the Augean stable. So let it be cleansed, as by water, 

 so that none of the excrementatious matter, whether solid or liquid, 

 shall be lost, but all so saved that it rnay be used to fertilize his gard- 

 ens and fields whence comes his daily bread. 



Zenophon, who lived about 450 years B. C. recommends the use of 

 earth that has long been under water, as a fertilizer of the soil — so 

 that the use of peat and mud from swamps and ponds, is no new dis- 

 covery ; he, also, recommended the growing of, and the ploughing in, 

 of green leguminous crops as a manure, remarking that they " enrich 

 the soil as much as dung." 



Virgil, who lived about 70 years B. C. wrote concerning the ad- 

 vantages to be gained by a rotation in crops — recommended nitrum, 

 not saltpetre, as many translate, but the carbonate of soda, or of jjot- 

 ash, mixed with the dregs of oil as a preparation for swelling seed- 

 grain before planting — suggesting the advantage of scattering ashes 

 over exhausted soils, thus indicating no slight knowledge of the meth- 

 ods of artificial fertilization then known — speaking not only of ordi- 

 nary manure, but of special manures, such as pumice, stone, shells, 

 &c. Pliny, who wrote about 100 years later, says, "There are many 

 kinds of manure and the thing itself is very ancient." Varro, one of 

 the most learned men of Rome, who lived about 100 years B. C. was 

 so minute in his enumeration of animal manures, as to mention the 

 dung of blackbirds, thrushes, and other birds kept in aviaries. Cato, 

 Theophrastus, and Columella, display a knowledge of compost ma- 

 nures that would be creditable to American farmers of the 1 8th cen- 

 tury — occasionally throwing out suggestions that would do credit to 

 a Massachusetts or New York farmer, even of the present day. 



The Greeks and Romans very generally, at the commencement of 

 the christian era, associated the ideas of successful husbandry with the 

 careful accumulation of manures, and their liberal use. " They con- 

 sidered the application of manure, as one of the principal operations 

 of agriculture, and placed it next to ploughing. They were so sensi- 



