ON MANURES. 1127 



is accordingly better employed in the cultivation of the coarser 

 descriptions of garden products — such as the Cabbage tribe and 

 Turnips — than of the more delicate vegetables or flowers, 

 especially as it favours luxuriance rather than maturation of plants. 



Urine a Forcing Manure. 



The immense difference between the manurial value of the 

 solid and liquid excrements of animals has been shown in some 

 recent experiments. The analysis of farmyard and stable manure, 

 together with the plant investigations, showed that the effect of 

 these manurial substances was plainly connected with the pro- 

 portion of soluble and active nitrogenous matters which they 

 contained. 



It will be observed in the foregoing Table of the analysis of 

 animal manures that the comparatively large proportions of 

 nitrogen in the urine of animals, ranging from 81b. per ton in that 

 of the pig, to 381b. per ton in that of the sheep, and to 421b. per 

 ton in that of the horse, corroborates the common view of 

 gardeners that urine is a forcing manure. Fresh urine is, in fact, 

 a very valuable nitrogenous fertiliser, but it must be used with 

 discretion for garden purposes, otherwise rank and unsightly 

 plants, with coarse foliage, will be produced instead of flowers 

 and fruit. Each pound of nitrogen in undiluted urine may be 

 rated at as high a price as has to be paid for the pound of 

 nitrogen in guano, nitrate of soda, or sulphate of ammonia. 

 The urine of horses, cows, and sheep contains also an exceedingly 

 large proportion of potash, while that of the pig is extremely rich 

 in phosphoric acid. 



The nitrogen in mere animal dung is of a very inferior quality 

 to that in urine, since most of it is insoluble and in a condition 

 unassimilable by plants until it has been subjected to the process 

 of nitrification. The nitrogen of the solid excreta is contained 

 chiefly in the undigested, not to say indigestible, portion of food 

 ' which has been expelled by the animal as useless for his 

 purposes, while the nitrogen in urine is all in solution and in a 

 condition fit to be immediately taken up by plants. And as 

 there is no excess of organic matter in urine, there is less loss 

 of nitrogen from denitrification. 



Experiments with Farmyard Manure. 



In some experiments of Sir John Lawes, at Rothamsted, Hert- 

 fordshire, with Potatoes grown year after year on the same land, 

 it was shown that in the first year of the application of 14 tons 

 of farmyard manure per acre, an increase of 8 cwt. of Potatoes 

 only was obtained over the plot which received no manure at 

 all ; while in the next four years of the application of the same 

 quantity of farmyard manure, the increase of Potatoes averaged 

 2 tons 17 cwt. per acre over the unmanured plot, pointing 



