The Condition of Country Labourers- 19 



soot with great advantage in substance, and though sown by the 

 hand, one dressing gave me always heavy crops of hay for two 

 successive seasons ; but this is a wasteful mode of applying it, 

 a great proportion of its ammonia, one of its most active ino-re- 

 dients, being volatilized and dissipated in the atmosphere. 

 When dissolved in water there is no waste : — it is all avail- 

 able, and for horticultural purposes I have mostly used it in 

 that state, mixing it up in the proportion of about six quarts 

 of soot to a hogshead of water. Asparagus, peas, and a variety 

 of other vegetables, I have manured with it with as much 

 effect as if I had used solid dung ; but to plants in pots, par- 

 ticularly pines, I have found it admirably well adapted : when 

 watered with it, they assume a deep healthy green, and grow 

 strong and luxuriant. — I generally use it and clean water 

 alternately, and always overhead in summer ; but except for 

 the purpose of cleansing, it might be used constantly with ad- 

 vantage ; and though I cannot speak from my own experience, 

 never having had either scale or bug on my pines, yet I think 

 it highly probable, as the ammonia it contains is known to be 

 destructive to these insects in a state of gas or vapour, that in 

 a liquid state, if it does not totally destroy them, yet that it will 

 in a great degree check their progress. 



Other materials for liquid manures are often difficult to pro- 

 cure, and tedious in their preparation : but soot, sufficient for 

 the gardener's purposes, is almost every where at hand, and in 

 a few minutes prepared. 



Were gardeners more generally aware that no manures can 

 be taken up in a state of solidity by plants as food, and that 

 they can only be absorbed by them in a gaseous or liquid state, 

 to which all solid manures applied must be previously reduced, 

 before any benefit can be derived from them, they would in 

 many cases facilitate the process by using them in a liquid state. 

 In houses where the rains have not access, it appears to me 

 superior to any other mode of administering manure to trees. 



Kilkenny, Aug, 24. 1826, 



Art. VII. An Account of a successful Experiment made by 

 John H. Moggridge, Esq. in Monmouthshire, with a View to 

 ameliorate the Condition of Country Labourers. By J. H. 

 Moggridge, Esq. of Woodfield, near Newport. 



Sir, 

 The communications which have been made to your excel- 

 lent Magazine by some of your correspondents, and, above all, 



c 2 



