URAININGS. IDS 



upon, and heavy showers fill even to an overflow ; 

 were it otherwise, there would no longer be villages 

 in which a brown current of liquid guano streams 

 forth from every farm inclosure, to be lost in the gut- 

 ters or the village pond. 



If this disregard of drainings originates in a mis- 

 taken estimate of their worth, and perhaps in part 

 from the circumstance that their fluid form renders 

 their preservation more difficult and their employ- 

 ment more inconvenient than solid manure, it should 

 be expected that information respecting the con- 

 stituents of this important portion of manure, as 

 also upon its proper treatment and use, will assist 

 materially in removing the indiflerence with which it 

 has hitherto been regarded. For this reason, in my 

 chemical lectures before agricultural societies it has 

 generally formed the starting-point from which I 

 have proceeded to the consideration of other portions 

 of manure, as I am firmly persuaded that it must 

 also form the starting-point in all improved agricul- 

 tural establishments. For nothing can more nearly 

 concern the farmer than the turning to most profita- 

 ble account those fertilizing substances which are 

 free from all expense, at his actual command. It 

 has afforded me peculiar satisfaction to learn, that 

 the counsels I have given on the occasions referred 

 to have been subjected to trial and received confir- 

 mation. On this subject, therefore, instead of ap- 

 pealing to mere theoretical conjectures, I am able to 

 cite facts which have stood the test of actual proof. 



