21 4- Mackenzie's Hints for Highland Tenants. 



as good for food to animals. 1 would, therefore, advise spreading the potatoes 

 required for domestic me, for some time on a heated kiln, and they will after- 

 wards keep for any required time on a dry loft without trouble. In the digest 

 it seems to be doubted, whether the ripe or unripe potato will be best to 

 keep for domestic use; but undoubtedly the ripe potato, containing most 

 flour and being least apt to decompose, as before stated, will be most fit for 

 that purpose. Flour is more nutritive to animals than mucilage, and the 

 floury potato will always be selected at table, in preference to the waxy. 



I perceive the Highland Society has oifered this year a premium for the 

 best essay on the excrement of plants ; and if you can find room for my 

 remarks on the subject [inserted in p. 218.], it may help some who have time 

 and apparatus to analyse the deposit. In the case of the spruce, I think it is 

 similar to turf, and acts both by decomposition reducing it into soluble food, 

 and by keeping the soil open for the admission of air, which may be de- 

 composed with the manure, and yield carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, the three 

 bases of all vegetable productions, and also nitrogen, a stimulant. 



We have grown some of our fine plants in pots, drained with bruised bones, 

 and have found that the fibres refused to enter it ; they contracted in their 

 length, swelled out, and had not a very healthy appearance. I think, there- 

 fore, bruised bones would not be suitable for glass cases, unless ground to very 

 small and fermented dust ; well-rotted leaves would be the safest, and animal- 

 ised carbon would give the most nutriment in least bulk. Carbon is what is 

 principally wanted as food for plants, but does not enter the spongioles of the 

 fibres freely till converted into a saponaceous matter by alkalies ; and this 

 requisite state is best found in well-decomposed manure ; a mixture of horse 

 and cow dung, rotted into the state of a black oily peat, is generally allowed 

 the best of all. 



Kilmarnock, March 14. 1840. 



REVIEWS. 



Art. I. Hints for the Use of Highland Tenants and Cottagers. By 

 a Proprietor. 8vo, pp. 273, 6 lithographs. Inverness. 



Sir F. a. Mackenzie, an enlightened and benevolent High- 

 land landlord, has written this work for the benefit of his cotter 

 tenants, and published it in pages of English alternating with 

 pages of Gaelic. The information it contains is admirabl}'- 

 adapted for the improvement of those for whom it is intended ; 

 and as the author does not attempt too much, and proposes to 

 introduce every innovation by degrees, there can be no doubt of 

 his success. The hints relate not only to the building of cot- 

 tages and management of cottage gardens and small farms, but 

 to the treatment of live stock and their diseases, to domestic 

 economy and cookery, including the making of clothes, the 

 treatment of common diseases, &c. In short, the work includes 

 the following heads, which we quote to show that it is a model of 

 its kind, and worthy of being imitated by proprietors in Wales, 

 and in many parts of England, i. Food. ii. Diseases and Me- 

 dicine. III. Clothing. IV. Houses, Furniture, &c. v. Boats, 

 Fishing Implements, &c. vi. Agricultural Implements, &c. 



