810 MANURE FOR MIXING WITH SEEDS. [Cuar. XVI. 
in England. This manure is not scattered over the 
land, but reserved for covering the seeds, and is 
applied in the following manner. When the seed 
time arrives, one man makes the holes, another 
follows and drops in the seeds, and a third puts a 
handful of this black earth on the top of them. 
Being principally vegetable matter, it keeps the 
seeds loose and moist during the period of germi- 
nation, and afterwards affords them nourishment. 
This manure is useful mechanically as well as 
chemically in a stiff soil, like that of the low lands 
of China, where the seeds are apt to be injured 
in the process of germination. The young crop 
thus planted acquires a vigour in its first growth, 
which enables it to assimilate the matter which 
forms the strong stiff soil, and to strike its roots 
firmly into it. 
What is commonly known by the name of oil- 
cake, is broken up and used in the same manner as 
the vegetable earth, and is also scattered broadcast 
over the land. ‘The oil-cake is the remains or re- 
fuse of the seeds of several different plants, such 
as the tallow tree, various kinds of beans, and the 
cabbage formerly mentioned. There is a great de- 
mand for this manure in all parts of the country, 
and it forms a very considerable branch of trade 
both by sea and land. Bones, shells, old lime, soot, 
ashes, and all kinds of rubbish, are also eagerly 
bought up by the farmer for the purpose of manure. 
In the Fatee gardens near Canton the propric- 
tors have a curious kind of rich mud, which they 
