146 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



a week has elapsed make holes in the heap with a crow bar, and fill them 

 until the whole becomes wet, with compost water, and make new ones the 

 following- week ; three such watering's within twenty days will make the 

 whole fit for use. If you cannot obtain liquid manure for this purpose, 

 water will do. When farmers have desired hippuric acid in their compost 

 heaps, they have only applied the liquid from their horses, whereas tiiat of 

 nearly all animals contains it, and it would be difiBcult to find an animal, 

 except the cow, that affords more liquid, or one richer than the despised 

 hog. But of all tlie liquid evacuations, there are none that surpass those 

 of man, a thousand parts of which, by analysis, contains 43^ lbs. of salts, 

 and will produce twice the effect of any other. And when we consider that 

 each man evacuates, yearly, a sufficient quantity to make an acre of land 

 rich enough to support him, the loss from the whole family of a farmer's 

 household is enormous. 



Potatoes may be increased 46 times, and Indian corn 36 times by the use 

 of this enricher, by applying it to the plant instead of the soil; thus, first, 

 when the roots start, second, when the leaves shoot forth, and third, when 

 the fruit is formed. And this production may be much increased in corn 

 by soaking the kernels in dilute urine until germination appears, this will 

 not only hasten the growth, but protect the plant from the attacks of in- 

 sects. If it is admitted that the liquid and solid excrements of man amount 

 to 1| lbs. daily, | lb. of urine, and ^ lb. feeces, there will be contained in 

 that amount 3^ per cent, of nitrogen, they will then amount to 550 lbs. in 

 a year, which contain nearly 7 lbs. of nitrogen, a quantity sufficient to 

 yield all that would be required by 801 lbs. of wheat, or 901 lbs. of barley. 

 While these invaluable matters are permitted to remain on the farm in the 

 receptacles prepared for them, the greatest part of their urea is converted 

 into carbonate of ammonia, lactate and phosphate of ammonia, and the ve- 

 getable portions lose by putrefying; then sulphates are decomposed, while 

 the Bulphi\r contaiued in them forms sulphuretted hydrogen and hydro-sul- 

 phate of ammonia. The mass has then lost by exposure to atmospheric air 

 half of the nitrogen originally contained in the excrements; the ammonia 

 escapes with the water when it evaporates. Notwithstanding it is still a 

 valuable manure, but would be four times more so, if the excretia had been 

 neutralized before being dried. A covering of charcoal dust will always 

 preserve these valuable principles. 



In all compost heaps it would be well to use such substances as contain 

 nitrogen or azotized matters, because they enter spontaneously into the 

 states of fermentation, and small quantities possess the remarkable power 

 of causing unlimited quantities to pass into the condition of putrefaction, 

 A pint of grape juice in the act of fermentation, added to one hundred pints 

 of the same fluid induces immediate fermentation in the whole mass. So a 

 thimblefuU of putrefied milk, thrown into a hundred quarts of fresh milk, 

 would cause the whole to pass rapidly into the same condition. When j'ou 

 find a compost heap is prone to fermentation you may rest assured that it 

 contains nitrogen. All those substances which appear in the compost heap 

 to possess the property of entering spontaneously into putrefaction, do not 

 really suffer those changes without having their elements disturbed. Ere- 

 macausis invariably precedes putrefaction after the absorption of a certain 



