The most simple means of employing dead Animals. 341 



No animal, however small, should be neglected ; for even though 

 they would not be of any other use, we ma}'^ in a few minutes cut 

 them up into small portions upon a log, with the aid of a hedging 

 bill, run a furrow between the ranges of different plants, and deposit 

 these portions in it at 15 or 18 inches apart, and cover them with 

 earth ; the increase of the product of the surrounding plants, which 

 may be remarked often many years afterwards, will indemnify very 

 amply, for the little trouble we may have had to obtain it. 



Many times, at the gates of Paris, where work is very dear, the 

 horse killers have found it advantageous to skin rats and dry the skins 

 in the air to sell to the furriers at 3 francs, 75 cts. a hundred. Mole 

 skins are sold as high as 10 francs the hundred. 



In the horse yards, the skins of cats and dogs are used in the 

 same manner ; the fat of these animals is melted, as we have said, 

 and sold very dear ; and finally the flesh of horses, dogs and cats, 

 when it is of a fine red color, and presents no brown or livid spots, 

 is destined, secretly, for the nourishment of men. 



All the industrious people who are occupied in curing these 

 animal substances, are in want of the former materials in France, or 

 procure them at great expence from foreign nations ; in scarcely 

 any place are these substances sufficient for manuring the earth, and 

 every where, without exception, they may be very advantageously 

 employed. 



Nevertheless these matters so useful, and so incompletely collected in 

 places where there is a dense population, are totally lost in most small 

 towns, villages, and hamlets. 



Let us hope that in future it will not be so ; country people who 

 know so well how to employ objects of the least value for the wants 

 of their families, should not neglect these useful substances, the least 

 advantage of which is to fertilize the earth, increasing thus the pro- 

 duct of the harvest which, contributing to the supply of their particular 

 necessites, concurs at the same time to promote the general good. 



Since such important results were worthy of the attention bestowed 

 by the royal and central society of agriculture, they will doubtless 

 excite the solicitude of the enlightened administrators of our depart- 

 ments, who know how to encourage all the means of obtaining them.* 



" The memoir from which this notice is extracted points out a great number of 

 means of a more elevated order for the employment of animal matters in various 

 arts ; it v^ill form a part of the Memoirs of the royal and central Society of Jlgri' 

 culture for 1830. 



Vol. XXIV.— No. 2. 44 



