Liquid Manure. 



if 



155 



The expence^ per acre^ of such an application of liquid manure^ 

 I thus estimate, supposing the cow-herd to be employed : — 



£. s. d. 



Three tons of cow or other fresh dung . .0180 

 Labour in mixing and occasionally stirring it with 



from 20 to 25 tons of water 

 Carting, and spreading it on the field . .080 



£18 0 



If it shall occur to the farmer, that the quantity of solid manure 

 thus added to the soil will not, in reality, much exceed two tons 

 per acre, and that this is, in appearance, a very small allowance, 

 I would remind him, that the quantity thus conveyed consists of 

 the soluble or richest portion of the manure, and is, in fact, the 

 extract without any of the straw, or other inert residuum usually 

 carried on to the soil ; besides, it is a very erroneous, though com- 

 mon conclusion, that to produce fertility a manure must be used 

 in large quantities. I have observed in this paper, that a flooding 

 with river water, so productive of heavy crops of grass in the water 

 meadows, does not carry on to the land more than two tons per 

 acre of animal and vegetable substances ; and, in the successful 

 experiments of the late Lord Somenille, at Fairmile, with whale 

 blubber, not more than a ton and a half per acre were applied. 

 The Essex farmers find three-quarters of a ton of sprats amply 

 sufficient; and two cwt. per acre of gypsum is the ordinary suc- 

 cessful allowance for grass land. The exact evenness, therefore, 

 with which a manure is spread over the land is a highly import- 

 ant consideration as regards the economy of manures. There is 

 no commonly cultivated plant which more delights in liquid 

 manure than the potato. It naturally luxuriates near to wet 

 ditches : on plots which have received the drainage of a dunghill 

 it grows with the greatest rapidity." I have invariably found that, to 

 any liquid mixture intended as a manure for potatoes, the addition 

 of five or six bushels of salt per acre is productive of great good, 

 both as regards the quantity and quality of the potatoes. 



On clover leys intended for wheat, the liquid should be turned 

 into the soil as early as possible after it is spread; and if this 

 operation is performed in moist cloudy weather, a very material 

 advantage will be perceptible in the succeeding crop. The 

 warmth of the sun is certainly prejudicial to the thinly-spread 

 liquid manure, composed of finely-divided animal and vegetable 

 substances. 



Of the tanks for receiving or preparing the liquid manure, I 

 may remark that I have always found them best made of flints or 



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