THE CULTIVATOR. 
13 
to the succulence and nutritive qualities of the food consumed.— 
This also holds with respect to the dung of oxen. When the ani¬ 
mals are fed on straw and the dried stems of plants, the dung is less 
rich and decomposable than when they are fed on turnips, oil cake 
and other nourishing food; and the same thing holds with respect 
to the dung of the hog and other animals. The dung of the differ¬ 
ent feeding animals is mixed in greater or less proportion with their 
litter, and the greater the proportion of the animal to the vegetable 
matter, the more readily will it ferment and decompose. 
The urine of the animals,again, is in itself a very rich manure, 
and cbntains, in certain states of combinations all the elements 
which enter into the composition of plants. It is necessarily mix¬ 
ed with, and partly absorbed by, the litter and other substances in 
the yards, of which it hastens, in a material degree, the fermenta¬ 
tion. 
The urine however, is apt either to make its escape by flowing 
out of the yards, or to be imperfectly mingled with the litter. It 
becomes, therefore, a part of the management of the farm-yard, 
to provide against either of these contingencies. 
The farm-yard should be made level at the bottom and paved if 
the sub-soil be loose and sandy, and the bottom should be sunk 
somewhat below the surface of the ground. As a portion of the 
liquid will flow from the stables and feeding houses, gutters of stone 
should be made to convey the liquid from these into tanks or other 
reservoirs adjacent to the yards. The same means are to be taken 
for conveying away any excess of liquid from the yards themselves. 
This is not done for the purpose of draining the yards of moist¬ 
ure, which would be an error, but for the purpose of preventing 
any excess of liquid from being lost. The principal cause which 
produces a great flow of liquid from the yards is an excess of rain, 
which, falling upon the heap faster than it can be absorbed, washes 
away the urine. 
Three methods may be adopted for the management of the liquid 
which is obtained from the feeding houses, or which oozes or is 
washed off from the mass in the,yards. 
1. It may be pumped from the tank or reservoir into which it had 
flowed, conveyed back to the farm-yard, and spread over the sur¬ 
face of the heap. In this manner it will be imbibed by the litter, 
and tend to hasten the decomposition of the mass. 
2. It may he pumped up when convenient, and conveyed in bar¬ 
rels to the field, and spread over the surface, a species of manuring 
which, under certain circumstances, is exceedingly efficacious. 
3. In the bottom of the tank or reservoir to which the liquid is 
conveyed, may be placed absorbent earths, stems of plants and other 
matters.* These being saturated, will become very rich manure, 
and may either be carried from the tank to the field, and applied to 
the ground, or put into heaps or composts, until the period of using 
them shall arrive. 
This method of collecting the excess of the liquid from feeding- 
houses, and yards, is perhaps the best in the common practice of 
the farms in this country. In Flanders, where extreme care is 
bestowed in the collection and preparation of liquid manures, there 
is a smaller proportion of straw and hay produced on farms, than 
in the mixed system of agriculture of Britain. There is not, there¬ 
fore, so great a proportion of ligneous fibre to be decomposed.— 
The Flemings, accordingly, pursue the mode of managing their 
manure, which the circumstances peculiar to their agriculture ren¬ 
der expedient. They can always ferment sufficiently the fibrous 
matter of the heap of their farm-yards, and therefore they have al¬ 
ways a spare supply of liquid in a separate state. But in this 
country, where we aim on producing a large quantity of hay and 
cereal grasses, we require nearly all the liquid from the feeding ani¬ 
mals, to moisten and ferment the general mass of the farm-yard. 
When the animals of the farm are fed on tolerably rich and suc¬ 
culent food, and when the proportion of straw is not too large, 
there is no difficulty in fermenting the mass of the farm-yard to the 
degree required; but when the quantity of straw is very large in 
proportion to the more moist and succulent food consumed, as 
sometimes occurs in the case of clay land farms in certain districts, 
then there may be considerable difficulty in getting the straw suffi¬ 
ciently fermented and decomposed for use. This may arise from 
want of moisture, as well as from a deficiency of animal matter; 
and as we may not at the time have the power of supplying the 
latter, we must endeavor to keep the heap moist by soaking it, in 
the absence of rain, with water. But the permanent remedy for 
this evil is to increase the quantity of such nourishing food as the 
farm will produce,—namely, cabbages, tares, clovers, and other 
succulent and nutritive plants. 
Sometimes, even when there is no extraordinary excess of dry 
litter, the fermentatioikof the heap in the yard after proceeding to 
a certain degree, suddenly stops, by which the manure is much in¬ 
jured. This action is termed fire-fanging. It arises from the want 
of moisture, and when it happens it is often very difficult to renew 
the fermentation. The best remedy is to turn over the heap, soak 
it with water, and mix it with horse dung, or any animal offal that 
can be obtained. 
With these exceptions, the management of the farm-yard is not 
attended with any difficulty. We have seen that the mass con- 
| sists of a collection of the excrements of the animals kept upon the 
farm, of the straw and other substances employed for litter, and ge¬ 
nerally of any refuse or offal produced at the homestead; and that 
this mixed substance is accumulated chiefly during the months of 
winter, undergoing during this period a certain degree of ferment¬ 
ation and decomposition in the yard where it lies. 
The substance thus collected and partially fermented, is to be 
applied to the grounds during the months of spring, summer, or au¬ 
tumn, immediately following the winter in which it has been pre¬ 
pared. It should be always applied as soon after it is prepared as 
possible, there being a waste either in retaining it too long, or in 
causing it to undergo a greater degree of fermention than is re¬ 
quired. 
In the process of the putrefactive fermentation, the elements of 
the body fermented, in assuming their new forms of combination, 
partly make their escape in the gaseous state. In the fermentation 
of manures the decomposition may proceed so far that the great 
mass of the substance shall be exhaled, leaving behind only the 
earthy and alkaline, and a portion of the carbonaceous matter of 
which it is composed. In the treatment of this class of substan¬ 
ces, therefore, the putrefactive fermentation should neither be con¬ 
tinued longer, nor carried to a greater degree than is necessary for 
the purposes intended. 
In practice, our object is to produce certain kinds of crops; and 
certain kinds of plants, it is found, require a greater action of ma¬ 
nures at particular stages of their growth than others. Thus the 
turnip, the carrot, and the beet, which are sown as will afterwards 
be seen, in the early part of summer, require that the manure ap¬ 
plied shall be in such a state of decomposition as to act upon and 
nourish them in the first stages of their growth, and if this be not 
so, the crop may entirely fail. In these and similar cases, according¬ 
ly, a complete preparation of the farm-yard dung is an essential 
point of practice. 
Certain plants, again, do not require the same state of decompo¬ 
sition of the dung. Thus the potato requires less in the first sta¬ 
ges of its growth, than the turnip, and hence it is not necessary to 
subject the manure to be applied to the ssme degree of fermenta¬ 
tion. The same remark applies to Indian corn. 
In some cases, too, as in the procefs of the summer fallow, to 
be afterwards described, the manure is mixed with the soil some 
time before the seeds of the plants to be cultivated are sown. In 
such case the manure undergoes the necessary fermentation in the 
soil itself, and does not require that previous preparation which, in 
the case of the turnip and some plants, is required. 
But where no necessity exists for fermenting the matter of the 
farm-yard beyond the degree requisite for the special purpose in¬ 
tended, it is always a point of good practice to foment it to that 
degree. In order to know when dung is sufficiently fermented 
for the particular use required, a very little practice and observa¬ 
tion will suffice. When it is fully fermented, the long stems of straw 
which formerly matted it together, are in such a state of decom¬ 
position, that the parts can be readily separated by a fork. It is not 
necessary in any case that it be in that extreme state of decay in 
which we often see it used by gardeners, and when it can be cut 
with a spade like soft earth. Whenever farm-yard dung has been 
fermented to this degree, it has been kept beyond the proper time, 
and the management has been bad. 
The mass, we have seen, is collected chiefly during the months 
of winter, and will always be ready to be applied to the ground in 
the spring, summer, or autumn immediately ensuing; and there is 
