538 LIQUID MAMURE. 
this without interfering with the manure in substance. We have 
the concurring testimony of thousands of eminent men, connected 
with as many practical experiments, that no plant can take in its 
food except in a fluid state, and the more this fluid is impregnated 
with animal or vegetable matter, the more it will act as a stimulant 
on the plant absorbing it. It has long been a maxim with Horti- 
culturists to apply this liquid to the roots of such plants as they 
wished to excel, but the effects produced on these individual plants 
have never yet acted as an inducement to bring the practice into 
general use. 
The accommodating price of your work has, to my knowledge, 
been the means of placing it in the hands of many respectable farmers; 
I shall therefore trespass a little more than I otherwise should attempt : 
and first, I intend to introduce a few experiments of my own. 
Having an abundance of peat earth at command, I subjected about 
seventy cart loads to a saturation in this liquid for twelve months, at 
the expiration of which time, an eminent farmer, who perhaps 
had paid more attention to the subject than I had, offered me 
£20. for it. My second experiment chiefly had its origin in this 
understanding that my predecessor who had sei-ved the family many 
years, had left on account of a disjiute about manure ; I at once put 
down a pump, which supjolied me with liquid manure for a dung 
yard, in which not less than thirty head of cattle were kept ; I set 
it down as a standing rule, that this was always to be attended to in 
autumn and winter months. This had not been practised more than 
twelve months before I found myself independent, with respect to 
manure, although I had four acres of garden ground. 
I would not advise its application in the summer, except to the 
Brassica family ; winter is, without exception, the best time to apply 
it to advantage ; and although it has been doubted whether its fer- 
tilizing properties are not carried off by heavy rains, I am confident 
that this is not the case ; upon the principle of filtration we may rest 
on this point. I have often been sorry to see farmers' teams driving 
up and down the country for lime to apply to old tilled land, and at 
the same time this liquid manure was running to waste, and was 
called a nuisance. 
This subject equally affects every cultivator from the prince to the 
pauper, for almost as much may be accomplished by. this liquid as 
by the substance. Supposing the gardener or bailiff was to take a 
store ox (which will be all the better for it afterwards) and draws 
this liquid either to the garden or farm, the expense of it would be 
comparatively nothing, and the results would be found exceedingly 
