124 Talks on manures. 



but those of us wlio are short of capital, must be content to bring 

 up our land l)y slow degrees. 



" I am at a loss to understand," wrote Mr. Geddes, " what you 

 mean, when you sa^' that a ton of straw* will make, in the spring 

 of the year, four tons of so-called manure. If you had said that 

 four tons of straw would make one ton of manure, I should have 

 thouuht nothing of it. But how you can turn one ton of straw 

 into four tons of anything that anybody will call manure, I do 

 not see. In a conversation I had with Hon. Lewis F. Allen, of 

 Black Rock, more than a yc ar ago, he told me that he had enquired 

 of the man who furnished hay for feeding cattle at the Central 

 Yards, in Buffalo, as to the loads of manure he sold, and though I 

 can not now say the exact quiuitity to a ton of hay, I remember 

 that it was very little — far less than I had before supposed. Please 

 explain tl)is straw-manure matter." 



Boussingault, the great French chemist-farmer, repeatedly ana- 

 lyzed the manure from his barn-j'ard. "The animals which had 

 produced this dung, were 30 horses, 30 oxen, and from 10 to 20 

 pigs. The absolute quantity of moisture was ascertained, by first 

 drj'ing in the air a considerable w-eight of dung, and after pound- 

 ing, continuing and completing, the drying of a given quantity." 

 No one can doubt the accuracy of the results. The dung made 

 in the 



Winter of 18.37-8, contained 79.6 per cent of water. 

 " 1838-9, " 77.8 " " " " 



Autumn" 1839, " 80.4 " " " 



Fresh solid cow-dung contains, according to the same authority, 

 90 per cent of water. 



I have frequently seen manure drawn out in the spring, that 

 had not been decomposed at all, and with more or less snow 

 among it, and with water dripping from the wagon, while it was 

 being loaded. It was, in fact, straw saturated with water, and dis- 

 colored by the droppings of animals. Now, how nmch of such 

 manure would a ton of dry straw make? If we should take 20 

 lbs. of straw, trample it down, and from time to time sprinkle it 

 with water and snow, until we had got on 80 lbs., and then put 

 on 20 lbs. more straw, and 80 lbs. more water, and keep on until 

 we had used up a ton of straw, how much " so-called manure," 

 should we have to draw out ? 



30 lbs. of stmw, and 80 lbs. watcr=100 lbs. so-called manure. 

 2,000 lbs. of straw, and 8,000 lbs. water=10,000 lbs. so-called manure. 



In other words, we get five tons of such manure from one ton of 



