V75 
nearly half an ounce. It had a saline taste, and 
a disagreeable smell, and contained some acetate 
and carbonate of ammonia. 
Finding such products given off from ferment- 
ing litter, I introduced the beak of another retort, 
filled with similar dung very hot at the time, into 
the soil amongst the roots of some grass in the 
border of a garden ; in less than a week a very 
distinct effect was produced on the grass ; upon 
the spot exposed to the influence of the matter 
disengaged in fermentation, it grew with much 
more luxuriance than the grass in any other part 
of the garden. 
Besides the dissipation of gaseous matter when 
fermentation is pushed to the extreme, there is 
another disadvantage in the loss of heat, which, if 
excited in the soil, is useful in promoting the ger- 
mination of the seed, and in assisting the plant in 
the first stage of its growth, when it is most feeble 
and most liable to disease : and the fermentation 
of manure in the soil must be particularly favour- 
able to the wheat crop in preserving a genial tern- 
perature beneath the surface late in autumn, and 
during winter. 
Again, it is a general principle in chemistry, that 
in all cases of decomposition, substances combine 
much more readily at the moment of their disen- 
gagement, than after they have been perfectly 
formed. And in fermentation beneath the soil, 
the fluid matter produced is applied instantly, even 
whilst it is warm, to the organs of the plant, and 
consequently is more likely to be efficient, than in 
manure that has gone through the process ; and 
T 2 
