156 



Liquid Mdmre, 



bricks set in good mortar or Parker's cement;* they may be 

 bedded in clay, but I would not advise the use of clay for the 

 brickwork, since worms are sure eventually to penetrate through 

 it ; and I advise the shape to be something like a decanter, larger 

 at the top than at the bottom, in the manner introduced at East- 

 bourne, and in Cornwall, chiefly by the advice of Mr. Davies 

 Gilbert. 



To the presence of a large proportion of urine, the richest of 

 liquid fertilizers, must be chiefly attributed the luxuriant effects 

 produced by the liquid manure, as prepared on the Continent, and 

 from the use of the sewerage matters of large towns, as so strikingly 

 proved in the case of the Craigintinny water-meadows, near Edin- 

 burgh, where the drainage is employed in the state in which it 

 issues from the sewers, and from whose use several crops of the 

 most luxuriant grass are annually obtained. All urine," said a 

 late distinguished chemical philosopher, contains the essential 

 elements of vegetables in a state of solution." By a careful 

 analysis, the human variety of this fluid, in its fresh state, was 

 found, by Berzelius, to contain the following substances : — 



Water . . . . . . .93-300 



Urea (the peculiar animal matter of urine) • 3*010 

 Sulphate of Potash . , . . . 0'37l 

 Sulphate of Soda ..... 0'316 

 Phosphate of Soda . . . . •0*294 

 Common Salt ..... 0*445 



Phosphate of Ammonia . . . . 0*165 

 Muriate of Ammonia . . . . 0*150 

 Lactate or Acetate of Ammonia . 

 Lactic or Acetic Acid 

 Animal matter, soluble in Alcohol 

 Inseparable Urea 



Earthy Phosphate (Earth of Bones) with 



FluateofLime . . . . 0*100 



Uric Acid 0*100 



Mucus of the Bladder .... 0*032 

 Silica (Earth of Flint) . . . .0*003 



100 



Thus it will be seen that there is hardly a single ingredient found 

 in urine Avhich is not either a direct food for vegetation, or fur- 

 nishes by its decomposition a supply in another form ; for in it are 

 thus detected the ammoniacal salts of the dunghill, the phosphate 



* See * Flemish Husbandry :' by the Rev. W. L. Rham, M.A.— (Farmers 

 Series, Library of Useful Knowledge.) 



1*714 



