260 
produced a copious precipitate; so that carbonic 
acid had evidently been formed and dissolved by 
the water. 
Manures from animal substances, in general, re- 
quire no chemical preparation to ft them for the 
soil. The great object of the former is to blend 
them with the earthy constituents in a proper state 
of division, and to prevent their too rapid decom- 
position. 
The entire parts of the muscles of land animals 
are not commonly used as a manure, though there 
are many cases in which such an application might 
be easily made. Horses, dogs, sheep, deer, and 
other quadrupeds that have died accidentally, or 
of disease, after their skins are separated, are often 
suffered to remain exposed to the air, or immersed 
in water, till they are destroyed by birds or beasts 
of prey, or entirely decomposed ; and in this case 
most of their organized matter is lost for the land 
in which they lie, and a considerable portion of 
it employed in giving off noxious gases to the 
atmosphere. 
By covering dead animals with five or six times 
their bulk of soil, mixed with one part of lime, and 
suffering them to remain for a few months ; their 
decomposition would impregnate the soil with 
soluble matters, so as to render it an excellent 
manure, and by mixing a little fresh quicklime with 
it at the time of its removal, the disagreeable effluvia 
would be in a great measure destroyed; and it 
might be applied in the same way as any other 
manure to crops. 
Fish forms a powerful manure in whatever state 
