257 
nourishment to plants ; but there is an objection to 
this method of using straw from the difficulty of 
burying long straw, and from its rendering the 
husbandry foul. 
When straw is made to ferment it becomes a 
more manageable manure ; but there is likewise on 
the whole a great loss of nutritive matter. More 
manure is perhaps supplied for a single crop ; but 
the land is less improved than it would be, suppos- 
ing the whole of the vegetable matter could be 
finely divided and mixed with the soil. 
It is usual to carry straw that can be employed 
for no other purpose to the dunghill to ferment, 
and decompose ; but it is worth experiment, whe- 
ther it may not be more (^economically applied when 
chopped small by a proper machine, and kept dry 
till it is ploughed in for the use of a crop. In 
this case, though it would decompose much more 
slowly, and produce less effect at first, yet its influ- 
ence would be much more lasting. 
Mere woody jibre seems to be the only vegeta- 
ble matter that requires fermentation to render it 
nutritive to plants. Tanners’ spent bark is a sub- 
stance of this kind. Mr. Young, in his excellent 
Essay on Manures, which gained him the Bed- 
fordian medal of the Bath Agricultural Society, 
states, “ that spent bark seemed rather to injure 
than assist vegetation which he attributes to the 
astringent matter that it contains. But in fact it 
is freed from all soluble substances, by the oper- 
ation of water in the tan-pit ; and if injurious to 
vegetation, the effect is probably owing to its 
s 
