28 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



and the plaster taken from the walls of 

 houses that are daily pulled down, which 

 latter is a most valuable manure. I am 

 informed that the Chinese will take down 

 an old. wall, and replace it with a new 

 one, to obtain the old one as manure. All 

 these substances, and a thousand others, 

 that might be named, are daily wasted in 

 our city. In different parts of Europe 

 there is a substance now in use, to disin- 

 fect filth, called animal black, it renders 

 inodorous any substance to which it may 

 be applied. There is now in this city an- 

 agent from some European company, 

 about arranging to disinfect cispools, and 

 render the contents portable and inoffen 

 sive. If such an arrangement can be 

 made, our citizens, will enjoy a much 

 purer atmosphere than they do at present, 

 and health will be the consequence. When 

 travelling in Switzerland and Germany, 

 I uniformly found, all the best farmers had 

 large reservoirs under their barns, into 

 which they daily swept all the excrements 

 of their cattle, which are always fed in 

 stalls, they then poured into them six times 

 the bulk of the manure in water; five 

 reservoirs are employed by the wealthy 

 farmers, each large enough to contain all 

 the manure made in a week ; they are 

 each allowed to remain four weeks after 

 being filled to ripen, by which time the 

 whole becomes a uniform liquid mass ; it 

 is then pumped into large vessels, carried 

 upon carts drawn by three pair of oxen 

 to the field, and distributed in a form ca- 

 pable of being taken up at once by the 

 plant. 



A German agriculturist at Frankfort, 

 informed me that all German farmers had 

 admitted from time immemorial, that bull's 

 blood and human urine were the most 

 powerful of all the fertilizers known, and 

 that if no other substance was used upon 

 land, it would always produce wonderful 

 results, as they contained (as has since 

 been proved by analysis,) every ingredient 

 requisite to produce growth in all plants. 

 It is usual in Germany to plough it under 

 immediately, to prevent waste by evapo- 

 ration ; before doing so they frequently add 

 five bushels of salt to the acre, which they 

 find productive of favorable results. 



Professor Shubler, of Germany, tried 

 the following experiment; he found a piece 

 of soil without manure yielded three times 

 the quantity of seed sown, and five times 

 the quantity of seed sown, when dressed 

 with old herbage, grass, leaves, &c, seven 

 times when dressed with cow dung, nine 

 times when dressed with pigeon's dung, 

 ten times when dressed with horse dung, 

 twelve times when dressed with human 

 urine, twelve times when dressed with 

 sheep's dung, fourteen times when dressed 

 with human manure and urine or bullock's 

 blood. 



Thus you see, that of seven fertilizers, 

 the liquid manures, urine and blood, were 

 found to be decidedly the most efficacious. 

 Human urine, in a fresh state, was found 

 by Berzelius to contain the following sub- 

 stances : water, urea, sulphate of potassa, 

 sulphate of soda, common salt, phosphate 

 of soda, phosphate of ammonia, muriate 

 of ammonia, lactate or acetate of ammo- 

 nia, lactic or acetic acid, animal matter, 

 soluble in alcohol, inseparable urea, earthy 

 phosphate (earth of bones) with fluate of 

 lime, uric acid, mucus of the bladder, urea 

 (earth of flint.) 



AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. 



We are almost afraid to express the doubts 

 we entertain of the success of any project that 

 has for its object the establishment of an agri- 

 cultural school, and yet this conviction is most 

 reluctantly forced upon us; and truth, unwel- 

 come as it may sometimes be, is never hurtful. 

 We have seen attempt after attempt of this 

 kind prove utterly fruitless, and we do not be- 

 lieve that it can be said that there is a single 

 agricultural school in successful operation 

 within the limits of the United States. We 

 thought if the thing contained within itself the 

 elements of success, they would have been de- 

 veloped in the circumstances under which Dr. 

 Lee's school was established in the Western 

 part of New York. Here is a rich and thickly 

 populated country, a region exclusively agri- 

 cultural and represented to us as uncommonly 

 intelligent. In its midst a school is established 

 under the auspices of two gentlemen, the one 



