AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 463 



excretice, a larger produce is obtained than with five tons of stable 

 manure. 



Accepting these conclusions as the result of actual experiment, 

 they place an equal quantity of fertilising matter in the form of 

 liquids above all other manures, considered with reference to its 

 producing capability alone, irrespective of the greater pecuniary 

 economy of its application. It has been found that the miscel- 

 laneous nature of liquid manures is very fovorable to vegetable 

 production. In every instance of irrigation with compounded or 

 miscellaneous manure, as compared with the applications of com- 

 paratively solid manures, the grass which had received the liquid 

 was far the richest, and the cattle went first to feed on the portion 

 of the field so irrigated. These results arc in accordance with 

 the principles of vegetable physiology, for the roots of plants 

 have the faculty, not only to seek their food, but when they have 

 arrived at it to select that which is most suitable to them, as Sir 

 Humphrey Davy long ago ascertained ; they do not take up every 

 thing that is presented to them. A distiller in Glasgow had a 

 cow shed attached to his distillery, in which he kept several hun- 

 dred cows ; their liquid was permitted to flow into a stream near 

 at hand, and became so serious a nuisance to a neighboring farmer 

 that he threatened prosecution. In order to get rid of it, the dis- 

 tiller determined to try it on his land instead of the solid manure 

 which had only been used before, and the production on stiff 

 ill-drained land was four fold, he now sells all the solid manure 

 on which he previously depended, to other farmers, amounting to 

 two thousand tons per annum, for twelve shillings per ton. 



The expense of applying fifteen loads of solid stable manure 

 would be if near the barn : 



Labor of three men half a day, _ $1 50 



Cart and two horses half a day, 1 50 



Man and boy spreading one day, 1 37 



Bush harrowing man and horse half a day, 1 25 



Labor of one man two days removing the effect of poaching 2 00 



$7 62 



