AMERICAN INSTITUTE 361 



kindred fermentation, that would have rendered it lit food for 

 plants. All other inert, or slow decaying, or acid matter would 

 have been treated in the same manner. The changes they would 

 undergo are not a little remarkable and instructive. Let us truce 

 them for a moment. The dung having in the intestines of the 

 animal undergone partial decomposition, is more nearly ready for 

 complete putrefactive fermentation, and commences to heat as 

 soon as its superabundant water has been pressed out. The cause 

 of the heating is twofold. 1st. The combustion of decay or 

 absorbing oxygen. 2d. The compression or lessening of bulk as 

 the heap settles down. As soon as the heating commences, the 

 carbon, the hydrogen, and the nitrogen lose their hold upon each 

 other, and are free for new associations. The carbon unites with 

 oxygen, and carbonic acid appears. The hydrogen and nitrogen 

 unite, and ammonia appears, for it is only until rotting or decom- 

 position takes place, that ammonia (that much talked of but little 

 understood substance) is to be found. And now the game is 

 opened, the mass of muck or other inert matter heated many 

 degrees above blood-heat, is prepared, by the expansion of its 

 particles, to receive a new influence. The tannic acid, that has 

 preserved its liquid and carbonaceous character so long, is met 

 by the ammoniacal gas escaping from the rotting dung, and neu- 

 tralized by this potent alkali to a harmless agent. The muck now 

 greedily absorbs many times its bulk of ammoniacal vapor, and 

 becomes not only a vessel for its preservation, but is itself ren- 

 dered a soluble carbonaceous substance, fitted for giving up its 

 elements to living plants. Not a bubble of the precious nitroo-e- 

 nous vapors, not a drop of the liquid gold of the compost can 

 now escape. But the muck accomplishes more than its huno-er 

 and thirsi dictates. It operates as a divider, to separate the par- 

 ticles of manure, and render them better fitted for complete divi- 

 sion and distribution in the soil. Now, whether one very imperfect 

 method of using manure is better than another very imperfect 

 method, ought not to occupy the attention of any man. Wliether 

 John Joluiston could obtain equal, or even better results, from 

 fresh manure carted to his fields in winter, than he could from it 

 hauled from his barn-yard half decayed in spring, or from the 

 same source, piled with care and frequently turned, but still so as 



