S’K 'y'-f&Jfi 1 
Vol. III. — No. 56.] 
Saturday, January 21, 1854. 
[Price 6iZ. 
AGRICULTURAL TALK. 
T HE references wo have made to the use and abuse of 
liquid manure bring us somo interesting correspondence. 
It seems that irrigation by liquid manure was first employed 
with completeness and success by Mr. Telford, of Ayr, on a 
small farm of forty acres near that town, under the manage- 
ment of a very clever woman. But this small establish- 
ment is in quite an exceptional condition. The proprie- 
tor has the means of selling every pound of butter and 
quart of milk he can prodace, in the neighbouring town, at 
an outside price. 
Competent judges who have examined the much-talkcd- 
offarm of Mr. Kennedy, at Myremill, do not believe that it 
pays — that is to say, that it would not have paid a tenant 
farmer to go to the expense which Mr. Kennedy has in- 
curred as an amusement to carry out liquid manure irri- 
gation. 
Those who are curious to seo by far the most complete 
arrangement for carrying out this system, should Visit the 
farm of Mr. Littledale, at Liscard, opposite Liverpool, to 
which we referred last week. There the buildings and 
machinery have avowedly been erected as an experiment, 
without regard to expense. There, too, is so good a retail 
market, that the cream and any quantity of butter can be 
sold at high prices. 
Now, wherever a conjunction of circumstances shall bring 
together a dairy farm close to a town, where every pound of 
produce can be sold at onco at out6ide prices, and where 
coal is to bo had cheap, there it may answer to set a steam- 
engine to work to irrigate the turnips, swedes, mangels, 
carrots, Italian ryegrass, lucerne, &c., on which the cows and 
pigs are to be fed. 
But as liquid manure applied to corn crops is unprofitable 
because it grows too much straw and not enough ear, and as 
it must, from its naturo, be used as fast os the tanks are full, | 
it follows that on a farm conducted on the ordinary four 
course shift, a system of mnnure irrigation would generally 
be worked at a loss. It would be applicable to only a 
i portion of the farm, would have sometimes to staud still, 
and sometimes be worked at a loss. 
We are therefore confirmed in the conclusion that liquid 
manure irrigation is not a panacea for revolutionising our 
system of farming, but an expedient which can only be 
profitably applied under the exceptional circumstances of a 
dairy farm under garden culture close to a town market. 
It seems more probable that it would answer the purposes 
of market gardeners to take to the pumpsteam-engineand hose. 
A simple, less novel, and more profitable mode of treating 
liquid manure is employed by two farmers, one in Lincoln- 
shire and another in Bedfordshire. Their stables, cowhouses, 
pigsties, and manure heaps, are drained into receptucles, 
into which are thrown from day to day enough of the fine 
ashes from the steam-engine to absorb the daily supply of 
liquid ; when'ashes are not sufficient, loam well sifted is em- 
ployed, care being taken that enough is thrown into the pit 
to completely absorb the liquid. 
The result of the mixture is, of course, a stimulatingmanure, 
which can be either drilled in or ploughed for any crop, but 
especially for woolcrops. Now, with farm buildings well 
spouted to carry off the rain, proper drains for farm steadings, 
and proper pits for manure, any one may economise the 
liquid manure produced on their establishment, and add to 
it the soap-suds, dish-washings, and other valuable wash 
materials of their houso. 
In arranging farms and farm buildings the go-ahead 
principle should always be kept in view. In modern factories 
the processes are always continuous, never backwards and 
forwards. The dirty rags go on from room to room in a 
straight line, washed, torn, and bleached, until they emerge 
in a sheet of paper. And so the American pig enters the 
slaughterhouse and, without ever retracing his step > 
parts In the shape of pickled pork in barrel, pig-skin, bristles’ 
&c. But too many farms straggle in two parts of a parish, 
while the farm buildings are so arranged that half tho la- 
bourers’ time is lost in pussing and repaying the same place. 
Farm produce may be good, middling, and bad; but it 
shows no signs of its origin. The wheat, the mutton, tho 
butter, the cheese, from the most advanced farmer, raised 
in the most scientific manner, bears no outward sign of its 
origin. Hence improvement in agriculture is so slow. Norfolk 
under Coke, Bedfordshire under the wise lanrtlordship of 
Francis Duke of Bedford, the Lincolnshire wolds stimulated by 
the Yarborough family, make great strides in agriculture, 
while others, close to great markets, remain ignorant of 
the first rudiments of rational agriculture. For instance, 
in the counties round London, Surrey, Kent. Buck.-, and 
Herts, hedges, gates, farm buildings, bad drainage, aud 
rude cultivation are to he found in discreditable profusion. 
Competent judges of agriculture— not theorists, but 
practical farmers— believe that the mere extension of tho 
system practised during the lust ten years in the host funn- 
ing counties of England and Scotland, to all the other 
districts, would more than double the food-prod uciug powers 
of the kingdom. 
Guano Supply still invites much attention, but we hare 
no more facts except that Messrs. Gibbs, the importers, de- 
cline to accept any more orders in the present uncertain 
state of supply. 
While so many are protesting against the Peruvian mono- 
poly, a correspondent, farming nearly two thousand acres of 
land, writes us unceremoniously, “ What nonsense this out- 
cry against the owners of guano. At its present price it is 
tho cheapest, manure sold ; and I should be very happy to 
contract for the next ten years to take thirty tons a-yeur, at 
nine guineas a ton.” 
PRIZE CIEESE, — Brawn tty Harrison Weir, 
