ORGANIC MANURES, 



291 



mass, and constitutes a manure of great power 

 and duration. The dung of cattle contains mat- 

 ter soluble in water, ;and gives in fermentation 

 nearly the same products as vegetables, absorb- 

 ing oxygen, and producing carbonic acid gas. 

 The insoluble part seems to be mere woody 

 fibre, and analogous to the residuum of the vege- 

 tables that constitute their food, after being de- 

 prived of all the soluble materials. The process 

 of rumination imparts a richness of quality from 

 the juices of the saliva, necessary for, and pro- 

 duced by, the additional chewing which the 

 food undergoes." The great value " of stable- 

 yard manure arises from its containing both 

 animal and vegetable substances ; the former 

 abounding with molecules of the body itself 

 from fatty matters, the latter yielding an ali- 

 ment to plants from saccharine and extractive 

 matters, but exerting no action on the soil or 

 its contents ; the former possessing substances 

 more active and energetic, which also afford a 

 direct aliment, and act on the vegetable matters, 

 and decompose and stimulate the humus in the 

 soil, which becomes exhausted by supplying the 

 extractive matter and carbonic acid, and re- 

 quires a regular renovation." As regards the 

 state in which the nutritive matter of stable-yard 

 manure should be, to be at once ready to enter 

 into the composition of plants as an aliment of 

 food, there can be but one opinion — it must be 

 aqueous or gaseous ; and hence recently-applied 

 manure, in a solid state, can be of no use to them 

 until it is reduced to a state of solution and sus- 

 pension. Water is the vehicle by which fertilis- 

 ing matters are conveyed to the plant, and these 

 must be in a very comminuted state to be ca- 

 pable of being suspended in it. " Chemists are 

 much divided," Dr Madden observes, " as to 

 what precise amount of decomposition is requi- 

 site to render organic matter in a proper state to 

 become food for plants. All agree that decom- 

 position must have commenced ; some maintain 

 that it must be completed. My own belief, 

 founded on extensive observations, and not a 

 few experiments, is, that all the products of de- 

 composition, in every stage, are available as food 

 for plants, provided they are either liquid, or 

 capable of dissolving in water." In reference to 

 applying manure to the soil immediately before 

 planting or sowing, Mr Donaldson very justly 

 observes, " A mass of dung, cold or warm, lying 

 in a drill, must be in too gross a form to pre- 

 sent and afford ready and palatable aliment to 

 the tender fibres of plants, and a further reduc- 

 tion and mixing is necessary to produce that 

 matrix of comminuted and finely-blended sub- 

 stances in which plants delight so very much to 

 grow. The influence of air and moisture will 

 reduce dry substances to a manure by blending 

 with the soil. Much time, however, is required, 

 and a great quantity of moisture, and frequent 

 stirring of the land. It is reasonable to suppose 

 that stable-yard dung, and all substances that 

 are applied to land as manure, should be in a 

 reduced state ; and in the case of the former, it 

 would require an application to the land at an 

 early season, that it may be broken and mixed 

 by the subsequent working of the implements ;" 

 or, in other words, that it may be changed and 



rendered soluble by the time the plants require 

 its assistance. The best compost-heap is the 

 soil itself, and the best system of manure man- 

 agement is to bury it in the soil before it 

 loses any of its fertilising properties. The 

 changes necessary for its reduction to a proper 

 food-supplying state will take place better in the 

 soil than in the exposed midden. Of all man- 

 ures, stable or farmyard dung is the most effec- 

 tive fertiliser yet known ; and although others 

 may be equally quick in their effects, yet none 

 of them are so lasting. Compared with inor- 

 ganic fertilisers, and many of the modern arti- 

 ficial compounds, it may be set down as the real 

 substantial food of plants ; while they can only 

 be regarded as provocatives of appetite— mere 

 stimulants, producing a sudden and ephemeral 

 effect — leaving the plant much in the condition 

 of an animal pampered with rich food in youth, 

 and left to shift for itself before it has arrived at 

 a state of puberty — that is, the period of exis- 

 tence, in both animals and vegetables, when they 

 require the greatest amount of nourishment. 



Notwithstanding the vast importance of this 

 material as a fertiliser, few things within the 

 whole range of rural economy are so shamefully 

 wasted and misused. Unnecessary exposure to 

 the weather, excessive fermentation, and a slo- 

 venly or ill-timed application of it to the soil, 

 are of every-day occurrence. To avoid these (the 

 two former in particular, for it is in these states 

 that the greatest loss is sustained), the manure 

 should be committed to the soil as soon after it 

 is made as convenient, and the process of fer- 

 mentation and decomposition allowed to go 

 on there. Gardens are differently circum- 

 stanced in this respect from farms, because, 

 in the former, crop after crop succeeds each 

 other in such rapid succession, that almost daily, 

 if not weekly, opportunities offer of ground 

 being cleared of one crop, and under preparation 

 for another. These opportunities should not be 

 lost sight of ; and as garden ground can hardly 

 be too much enriched, manure in greater or less 

 quantity shoiild be applied to almost every crop. 

 By this means the ground becomes enriched 

 by the very essence of the manure, which would 

 otherwise be allowed to escape in a gaseous state 

 during excessive fermentation, deprived of much 

 of its best properties while undergoing unneces- 

 sary decomposition, whether on the dunghill or 

 cucumber-bed, leaving it at last, when in the 

 form of what is called spit dung, so highly 

 prized by some gardeners, in a state little bet- 

 ter than that of a mass of inert peaty matter. 



The application of stable-manure, for the most 

 part, has hitherto been considered as beneficial 

 only when applied immediately previous to the 

 sowing or planting of the crop. To this long- 

 received opinion we by no means subscribe, and 

 therefore in practice apply such manure gene- 

 rally in autumn, through the winter, or, indeed, 

 whenever the ground requiring enrichment is 

 cleared of its crop. This is new neither in 

 theory nor in practice; it has been acted upon by 

 excellent cultivators with the best results, and 

 was first recommended by Sir Humphry Davy, 

 who has clearly enough explained the principle in 

 his papers on "Agricultural Chemistry." When 



