May 15. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
3.13 
am God.” How loudly was this command uttered to poor 
John Carter ! Ho was, indeed, hy one stroke, made “ still,” 
as to the body, for ever! The Lord met him in his ipad- 
ness and folly, and struck him down, never to rise again. 
But this, even this, was a loving stroke. Perhaps a lighter 
one would have done no good, and, therefore as we often 
see among our own children, severity is the kindest treat¬ 
ment a parent can employ. The loss of his whole bodily 
powers was to bring about the salvation of his soul. 
I Nothing else, certainly, would have done, or the Father 
! would not have smitten the child so sharply. Reader! 
i believe it, that every stroke, every trial, every affliction you 
j meet with, is a Father’s method of dealing with you. You 
may not heed them, but they are sent in mercy to rouse 
and awaken you, and woe be to the soul that does not rise 
up at the call! 
Now, let us mark the Lord’s mercy towards the smitten 
body of this interesting sufferer. “ About a year after the 
accident, his wife saw, and borrowed for him, a little book, 
which gave an account of a young woman, who, having lost 
the use of her hands, amused herself by drawing with her 
mouth. He determined to try to do the same. At first he 
copied butterflies in water colours ; but soon adopted a 
better style. His kind patrons, the family of Mr. Ilanbury, 
supplied him with Bewick’s “ Birds,” and other engravings 
of the same description, and he soon learned to sketch them 
very accurately, with a camel’s-hair brush and Indian ink. 
Inclined towards the right side, with his paper and copy 
fixed to his drawing desk, which is placed in a convenient 
position on the bed almost perpendicularly before his face, 
and with his hair pencil between his teeth, he can produce, 
by means of the*motion of his neck, assisted occasionally by 
his lips, most delicate and beautifully turned strokes. He 
lives upon parish allowance, his weak state of health pre¬ 
venting any further application to his new employment than 
is sufficient to procure for him some few additional comforts, 
or. as they may be well called in his case, necessaries.” 
This account was published in 1840. Whether John 
Carter yet lives, 1 know not; but should he be dead, he yet 
speaks loudly to us from his tomb. What encouragement 
to us to use our weakest powers diligently ! What difficulties, 
and apparent impossibilities can be overcome! The heaviest 
afflictions can be softened by the tender mercy of God, and 
the most untoward circumstances turned to good account. 
I believe the gracious assurance, “ Only believe: all things 
are possible to him that believeth,” was not spoken only to 
one individual, but to all people , and throughout all ayes. I 
believe that faith, though not bigger than a mustard seed, 
can remove a mountain. Readers ! ponder deeply upon the 
history of John Carter, and pray that it may be made profit¬ 
able both to soul and body. 
A MANURE MANUFACTORY. 
We gladly give from a recent number of a contemporary 
the following sketch of a manufactory in which the Gardener, 
as well as the Farmer is interested. We intend, one day or 
other, to pay a visit to the same works, and we promise our 
readers a faithful account of our pilgrimage. 
“ It is only within these few hours,” says the Editor of 
Bell's Messenger, “ that we have seen the interior of a 
modern manure manufactory. We had often, it is true, been 
invited by our neighbour, Mr. Edward Purser, to visit the 
works of the London Manure Company in the Isle of Dogs, 
but wo did not consider that what we were invited to see 
would be likely to repay our labour, neither did our remi¬ 
niscences of the London manure yards of the olden time 
inspire us with any pleasant forebodiugs. Still, on a bright 
April morning, in company with the manager of this 
company, we wended our way towards the Isle of Dogs; 
and we confess that we never saw anything less like what 
our imagination had depicted. Instead of open yards, full 
of decomposing animal matters, we beheld large covered 
inclosures—not a trace of anything to offend the senses; 
and after spending a morning in examining these works, 
the practical energy employed, and the science so con¬ 
tinuously brought to bear in producing the most fertilising 
compounds—after noting these things, we left the works 
with a far more elevated opinion of the manure establish¬ 
ments of England than we had before. When we describe 
only these works, it is merely because we have seen no 
others; there are the manufactories of Mr. J. B. Lawes, 
and other companies, which, we believe, are conducted 
much in the same way as those to which we are about to 
introduce our readers. 
‘‘ Upon our arrival at the works, we were first introduced 
into a small laboratory, where most of the numerous chemi¬ 
cal examinations required by the company are carried on, 
under the care of an intelligent analytical chemist. We 
here learn that it is ordy by systematically analysing every 
substance the company purchase that they can guard them¬ 
selves from fraud ; for it seems that adulteration is rife even 
in the ingredients of which manures are made—that copro- 
lites are mixed with Hint stones, gypsum with chalk, sul¬ 
phuric acid has its specific gravity increased by adding to it 
glauber salt, and even soot is mixed with finely sifted coal 
ashes. 
“Leaving the laboratory, we were led through the manu¬ 
factory. Here large heaps of manures seemed closely 
packed in all directions. Huge heaps of calcined bones 
were ranged on one side, large mounds of superphosphate 
of lime were piled one on another; heaps of bags filled 
with sulphate of ammonia reclined against one side. Through 
one liver-side door a gang of labourers were emptying 
barges filled with calcined bones, collected on the banks of 
the La Plata; another barge, filled with animal charcoal 
from France; a third, with Suffolk coprolites, was waiting to 
be unloaded; a fourth, full of common salt; a fifth, with 
cubic petre from Lima; a sixth, with Sicilian sulphur, for 
the preparation of sulphuric acid, had just arrived. These 
were the raw materials—the foodfor the devouring machinery 
of the manufactory, to which wo next had our attention 
directed. Here were powerful crushers, rollers, millstones, 
and other machines for breaking and grinding the stubborn 
bones, the still harder coprolites, and other tough substances. 
In one portion of the manufactory a group of labourers 
were mixing together large heaps of ground bones, coprolites, 
dried blood, or other nitrogeneous substances. This mix¬ 
ture is then carried, at the rate of three cwt. per minute, by 
a peculiar machinery somewhat resembling a chain-pump, 
to a large iron cylinder lined with lead, in which an iron 
beam, armed with stirrers, is rapidly revolving. Into this 
mixer a stream of sulphuric acid is constantly flowing, and 
from it the mingled substances, in a semi-fluid state, pours 
out into some very large kind of bins, where the mass 
speedily becomes solid; aud this, after it has been made a 
proper length of time, constitutes the superphosphate of 
lime of commerce. Opposite this machinery a gang of 
men were breaking down and filling the superphosphate 
into bags for shipment into the country. Behind them a 
steam-engine was noiselessly at work, turning the agitators 
in the mixing apparatus, pumping sulphuric acid, and 
performing other tasks. 
“ Passing the engine room, we entered upon another branch 
of the manufactory—it was here that a row of furnaces of 
a peculiar construction, in which a mixture of sulphur and 
cubic petre is burnt, marked with its bright blue flames the 
spot where the oil of vitriol, or sulphuric acid, is made. 
The sulphurous appearance of the flame of these furnaces, 
the fumes they emit, the piles of bright yellow sulphur 
placed close by, the huge leaden chambers, each 75 feet 
long and 25 broad, in which the sulphurous vapours are 
condensed—all mark a peculiar and interesting manufacture. 
On another side we saw a great heap of the urate preparing ; 
through another river door were streaming, to and fro, a 
gang of men loading barges with various manures. In a 
small room close by, a more powerful steam-engine than 
the first named was at work; it is this engine that moves 
the grinding and crushing machinery to which we have 
already referred. We were informed hy our guide that 
about 70 to 80 persons are employed in the busy season at 
these works, which cover nearly an acre of ground. 
“ “We felt, as our readers will feel, that here was a peculiar 
and interesting sight—a spectacle which 15 years since 
was not to be witnessed, for then not a single chemical 
manure manufactory existed in England. We thought of 
other lands, too ; we could not but reflect, that to produce 
such a manufacture as this, even at the moment when we 
