The recent dung of sheep and of deer afford, 
when long boiled in water, soluble matters, which 
equal from two to three per cent, of their weight. 
I have examined these soluble substances procured 
by solution and evaporation : they contain a very 
small quantity of matter analogous to animal mucus; 
and are principally composed of a bitter extract, 
soluble both in water and in alcohol. They give 
ammoniacal fumes by distillation ; and appear to 
differ very little in composition. 
I watered some blades of grass for several suc- 
cessive days with a solution of these extracts ; they 
evidently became greener in consequence, and 
grew more vigorously than grass in other respects, 
under the same circumstances. 
The part of the dung of cattle, sheep, and deer, 
not soluble in water, appears to be mere woody 
fibre, and precisely analogous to the residuum of 
those vegetables that form their food after they have 
been deprived of all their soluble materials. 
The dung of horses gives a brown fluid, which, 
when evaporated, yields a bitter extract, which 
affords ammoniacal fumes more copiously than that 
from the dung of oxen. 
If the pure dung of cattle is to be used as 
manure, like the other species of dung which have 
been mentioned, there seems no reason why it 
should be made to ferment, except in the soil ; or 
if suffered to ferment, it should be only in a very 
slight degree. The grass in the neighbourhood of 
recently voided dung is always coarse and dark 
green ; some persons have attributed this to a 
