EXCREMENTS AND URINE. 



7^ 



X. Manures that improve the Soil. 

 Lime, marl, loam, sand, 

 Pond-mud, vegetable mould, turf, ^tc. 



IV. EXCREMENTS AND URINE. 



There are, indeed, numerous countries and tracts 

 of land in which the soil brings forth its fruits, and 

 frequently in great abundance, without the applica- 

 tion of any fertilizing substance. These are either 

 regions where the sparseness of population demands 

 of the farmer no anxious and diligent economy of 

 the energies of his land, or which are so favored by 

 Nature that the natural crumbling of the soil pro- 

 vides a supply of nutritive material sufficient for the 

 growth of many harvests. That this supply is, how- 

 ever, not inexhaustible, is seen in America, where 

 lands of the most fertile character have been so ex- 

 hausted by the continued cultivation, for nearly a 

 century, of tobacco and sugar, that they must now 

 be manured, if they are to yield their usual produce. 

 The northern countries of our globe do not belong 

 to these highly favored regions, and if we would here 

 reap abundantly^ we must manure abundantly. 



The beneficial influence which animal and human 

 refuse, the excrements and urine, are capable of exert- 

 ing upon vegetable growth, has made these otherwise 



