WITH REFERENCE TO HORTICULTURE. 



59 



187. In every suburban villa, arrangements should be made for collecting 

 all the liquid manure into two adjoining tanks, and mixing it there with 

 v^^ater ; one tank to be kept filling and mixing, while the other is fermenting 

 and being emptied. Where urine cannot be got, excrement and water form 

 the best substitute. The fermented liquid may either be poured direct on 

 the soil of the garden, among growing crops, at the roots of fruit trees, or on 

 the naked soil, with or without other manure, and more especially with straw, 

 or other vegetable matters, for the purpose both of enriching them and 

 promoting fermentation. 



188. Hair, wool, feathers, leather, horn, rags, &c., decompose much more 

 slowly than excrementitious or vegetable manures ; but they are exceedingly 

 rich in gelatine and albumen, and are therefore very desirable where the 

 object is duration of effect, as well as luxuriance. Dead animals of every 

 kind, including fish, make excellent manure ; and when there is any danger 

 anticipated from the effluvia which arises during decomposition, it is readily 

 prevented by covering or mixing the putrid mass with quicklime. In this 

 way nightsoil and the refuse of the slaughter-houses in Paris, Lyons, and 

 other continental towns, are not only disinfected, but dried under the name 

 of poudrette^ and compressed in casks, so as to form an article of commerce. 

 Sugar-bakers' scum, which is obtained from sugar refineries, consists of 

 the blood of cattle and lime ; it can be sent in a dried and compressed state 

 to any distance, and forms a manure next in richness to bones. In gardens 

 it may be used as a top dressing to culinary vegetables, and as an ingredient 

 in the composition of vine borders. Animalized carbon consists of nightsoil 

 of great age ; it is sent to different parts of Europe from Copenhagen, where 

 it has accumulated during ages in immense pits and heaps, which some years 

 ago were purchased from the city by an Englishman. It is an exceedingly 

 rich manure. 



189. Bones, though a manure of animal origin, depend fortheir effects a good 

 deal on their mineral constituents. Next to nightsoil, bones are perhaps the 

 most valuable of all manures. Chemically they consist of gelatine, albumen, 

 animal oils, and fat, in all about 88 per cent. ; and of earthy matters, such 

 as phosphate of lime, carbonate of lime, fluate of lime, sulphate of lime, 

 carbonate of soda, and a small quantity of common salt. In consequence of 

 the animal matters which they contain, crushed bones when laid in heaps 

 very soon begin to ferment, and when buried in the soil previously to being 

 fermented in heaps, the putrescent fermentation goes on with great rapidity. 

 In gardens they should seldom be used without being broken small and fer- 

 mented in heaps for several months. Bones are valuable as a specific 

 manure, because they contain phosphate of lime, which is an ingredient 

 common to a great many cultivated plants both of the field and of the gar- 

 den. Bone manure, if used on the same soil for a number of years, is 

 found to lose its effect ; the reason of which is inferred from one cause of 

 their excellence, viz., that the animal matter which they contain acts as a 

 ferment or stimulus to the organic matter already in the soil, by wliich 

 means this organic matter becomes sooner exhausted than otherwise would 

 be the case. The remedy for this evil obviously is, to discontinue the use 

 of the bones, and to supply putrescent manure, such as stable-dung. 



190. Vegeto-animal manures consist of a mixture of animal and vegetable 

 substances, such as the straw used as litter in stables or farmyards, and the 

 excrements and urine of the animals which are kept in them. It may be 



