Queries and Answers. 1 83 



2. " Pigeon or Poultry Dung" forms a very powerful manure in raising 

 excellent crops of turnips in the fields ,• but its effects will not reach through 

 an ordinary farm rotation. 



3. " Vetches, fyc, ploughed in" Under this article may be included all 

 sorts of green manure. Amongst the most active plants employed as manure, 

 I have found the [wild species of the genus] iSinapis, ploughed in fresh in the 

 bottom of turnip drills, at the rate of twenty tons per acre. The produce 

 brought by auction 12/., while the rest of the field, manured with twenty tons 

 of farm-yard dung, brought only from 91. to 10/. per acre. Other weeds, such 

 as nettles, thistles, ragwort, &c, produce crops superior to farm-yard dung. 

 Potato stems, fresh ploughed in, on clover lea for wheat, I have found to pro- 

 duce crops exceeding by two bolls per acre in quantity, with more propor- 

 tionate weight of straw, the other parts of the same field manured with 

 farm-yard dung, but otherwise under the same circumstances. The steins 

 from three acres of good potatoes will manure an acre for wheat to much 

 better purpose than fifteen tons of farm-yard dung, the usual quantity allowed 

 in that part of the rotation ; clover after wheat being the crop which generally 

 precedes fallow. Under the head of " green manure," I may mention an 

 experiment I this year made with pea-straw converted into dung without 

 the aid of cattle. Having something of that sort on hand, about the middle 

 of last May, and being in want of some loads of manure to finish a potato 

 field, I had the peas threshed at the mill, and the straw and chaff carried to 

 the side of the potato field, and made up like a large hot-bed, giving each layer 

 of straw an ample watering. Fermentation soon commenced; and, by the fifth 

 day, the mass was so far decomposed as to be easily filled into the carts. 

 The effluvium in filling was almost intolerable. It was in this state laid in the 

 bottom of the drills ; the sets of potatoes were planted above, and the earth 

 ploughed over the whole. Notwithstanding the dry nature of the ground, 

 and the dry state of the weather in the summer months, the part of the field 

 manured with decomposed pea-straw yielded a better return than where farm- 

 yard dung was applied, 



4. " Pig's Dung." I have found it a strong manure ; but I apprehend it 

 contains something not favourable to vegetation, if applied to any thing like 

 excess in a recent state. 



5. " Sheep's Dung." When the sheep are lodged at night in winter in a 

 fold or field, and so managed as to have to walk over the ground where they 

 previously lay, so as to tread in the dung with their feet in going out and in, 

 the beneficial effects will be observable for three years on the poorest soils, if 

 dry. Eating off turnips with sheep is followed by the same result. 



6. " Horse Dung" very slightly fermented, I should say, might come next 

 in order for cold lands, and cow dung for hot or dry lands ; and neither the 

 one nor the other is fugacious in its effects. 



7. " Liquid Manure" (urine) is active and powerful, but the effects not 

 lasting. 



8. " Soot" might have ranked among the first kinds of manure as to ac- 

 tivity, if applied to green crops immediately before, or during the time of rain ; 

 but soot, like liquid manure, is of an intoxicating quality, producing a rapid 

 growth at the expense of after-crops. 



9. " Bone Dust" being now very popular, might have appeared earlier in the 

 list ; but, from observing a proportion of human bones, from the trenches of 

 Leipsic and Waterloo, bleaching among others on the surface of turnip fields, I 

 could only bring myself to make one trial before I made the discovery. Those 

 farmers whose feelings allow them to hasten the process of converting the 

 bones of our brave defenders into vegetable matter, may find a powerful 

 auxiliary in bone dust, with little " expense of carriage." 



10. " Lime" being merely a stimulant, I do not include it in the list ; and I find 

 my limits prevent me from noticing farther the other odds and ends men- 

 tioned by your correspondent. — Archibald Gorrie. Annat Gardens, Oct 29. 

 1833. 



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