338 On the most simple means of employing dead Animals. 



times its volume of dry earth; this mixture produces an excellent ma- 

 nure very easy to be spread very thinly upon cultivated earth, or be- 

 tween the tufts of different plants. Relatively to flesh, it may be 

 stevi^ed up, without taking out the bones, in large kettles or pots in 

 M^hich it should be completely immersed in water and closed com- 

 pletely with a cover well pressed down upon the edge of the pot or 

 kettle, by means of three or four large stones. (In order to close it 

 still better, it will be well to put between the edge and the cover 

 some old pieces of linen.) After having thus, slowly, boiled the whole 

 for seven or eight hours we may try whether the meat has be- 

 come very tender by thrusting into it the blade of a knife. If it still 

 remains tough, we should continue to heat for an hour or two ; then 

 removing the meat from the pot we can extract all the bones from it, 

 to be employed as before said, and the meat is to be hashed up as 

 fine as possible ; it is to be mixed with dry mould, when it will an- 

 swer for manuring the earth, as we have just said of the blood. 



We may employ the raw meat as manure, by placing it near the 

 hillocks of plants ; but in this case it will be necessary, in order to 

 spread it in small quantity at a time, to hash it or cut it up in small 

 portions — a rather tedious operation — and it will be proper to cover 

 it with earth, that it may not be too easily perceived and devoured 

 by rats and other little field animals. This latter precaution will be 

 proper in all cases ; especially as it is easily accomplished. Raw. 

 meat is however less advantageous for manuring the earth than when 

 it is cooked, because, in the former state, it is too quickly decompo- 

 sed, and a great quantity of the gas which it produces is lost. This 

 observation applies equally to blood which is employed without cook- 

 ing. The flesh, as well as all interior parts, the blood, and empty 

 bowels, may likewise be used in summer to produce maggots or little 

 white worms ; those are employed with much advantage, and sell 

 sufiiciently dear in pheasant walks, because they form a substitute 

 for the eggs of ants, for the nourishment of young pheasants. In 

 Paris, a bushel (the eighth part of a hectolitre) of maggots sells for 

 from four to six francs, for the royal and private pheasant walks. The 

 production of these little worms is so lucrative, that in order to obtain 

 them, there is employed during the favorable seasons almost all the 

 flesh and intestines of three or four thousand horses, which are killed 

 at Montfaucon during this space of time. 



The following is the manner of obtaining the maggots. A bed of 

 flesh and entrails, five or six inches thick, is to be spread upon the 



