110 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Chemical, or Prepared Manures. 
It is sometimes asked, and that too in a way indica¬ 
ting a belief that the question cannot be satisfactorily 
answered, what are the advantages that science has 
conferred on Agriculture ? more than intimating that 
knowledge, so essential to all other pursuits, is of no 
value to the farmer. It is a sufficient reply to all this, 
to simply point to the articles named at the head of 
this paper ; chemical, or prepared manures. For 
the present we shall confine ourselves to a single class, 
those derived from urine and night soil, or of which 
these furnish the most important part. 
It may be said that the use of night soil has been 
known from the earliest ages as a manure. This is 
true, but its use has always been limited, owing to pre¬ 
judices arising from its disagreeable nature, and its of¬ 
fensive odor. The celebrated Swedish chemist, Ber¬ 
zelius, was among the first to call the attention of mo¬ 
derns to these substances by his analysis of them, which 
gave the following results : 
Night Soil, 100 parts. 
Water,. 73.3 
Vegetable matter and ani¬ 
mal remains,. 7.0 
Bile,. 0.9 
Albumen,. 0.9 
Peculiar and extractive 
matter,. ••••■• 2.7 
Salts,..— 1.2 
Insoluble residue,.14.7 
The intelligent farmer will see at a glance that the 
matters enumerated in these tables constitute most effi¬ 
cient fertilizers, and in spite of their repulsive nature, 
the Flemish farmers have long been in the habit of 
mixing these stercoraceous matters with water, which, 
applied with much labor to their fields, gave a fertility 
unknown to the rest of Europe. Some 28 years since, 
Davy suggested to his countrymen, the English, that 
night soil was a very powerful manure, liable to de¬ 
compose, soluble in water, and in whatever state it is 
used, furnishes abundant food for plants. He found, by 
experiment, that quick lime destroyed the disagreeable 
smell, and ascertained that it might be dried, pulveriz¬ 
ed, and delivered by drills at the time of sowing the 
seed. The manufacture from night soil of the valuable 
manure, called poudrette, belongs to the French. Near¬ 
ly 40 years since, a chemist, M. Bridet, obtained a pa¬ 
tent for his poudre vegetative, manufactured from the 
cesspools of Paris ; and such was his success that sim¬ 
ilar manufactories were erected all over the country, 
particularly in the vicinity of the large cities, so that 
what was once a nuisance, is now deemed of the great¬ 
est value. 
In 1814, the French Royal Society of Agriculture 
granted a gold medal to Madame Vibert Duboul, who 
obtained a patent for 15 years for her “Alkaline Vegeta¬ 
tive powder.” Her plan consisted in fermenting the 
most liquid parts of these matters, and mixing them 
with slaked lime afterwards, so as to form a pow¬ 
der much superior and more durable in its effects to 
common poudrette. 
In 1818, the first manufactory of : Urate’ properly so 
called, was commenced near Paris, by the chemists Dou- 
at & Co., and the product was submitted to the exam¬ 
ination and test of a committee of chemists and agricul¬ 
turists, in which were included some of the ablest 
men of France. This committee reported that they 
had found the preparation so powerful on the dullest 
soils, that they recommended it should only be employ¬ 
ed by skillful and discriminating farmers. On good 
soils, or in large quantities, it gave such a growth of 
straw as to be fatal to the maturity of the grain. The 
whole matter collected from the cesspools of Paris, is 
now converted into poudrette and urate, and is used by 
the farmers and gardeners principally within a circuit 
of 30 miles around Paris. 
A new preparation called ‘ engrais animalize,’ or dis¬ 
infected night soil, has recently been entered upon at 
Paris, and a large manufactory has also been establish¬ 
ed at White Chapel, near London. It is made by mix¬ 
ing the night soil with a considerable quantity of fine¬ 
ly pulverized charcoal, and then drying the mass at a 
very gentle heat. Thus prepared it resembles the fri¬ 
able mold, rich and dark, of an old hot bed, and is to¬ 
tally devoid of smell. The English farmers, if we 
may judge from their reports and journals, are highly 
pleased with this manure, particularly as a dressing for 
turneps, giving them a quick growth at the start, which 
is of great importance with this root. There is anoth¬ 
er preparation called “Owen’s Animalized Carbon,” 
principally brought into England from the Baltic, one 
ton of which is considered equal to 25 bushels of crush¬ 
ed bones, while the cost is but little more than half as 
much. It probably differs little from the engrais ani¬ 
malize, except that it contains more carbon, and, of 
course, is a less powerful manure. 
There is a chemical preparation called ‘ Seed Ma¬ 
nure,’ prepared by Messrs. Hodgson and Simpson, of 
Wakefield, England, the composition of which is a se¬ 
cret, but the base of it is, doubtless, urate, mixed with 
a portion of saccharine matter, ammonia, salt, and ni¬ 
tre. Their directions are as follows, and by following 
them Mr. Millburn and others have experienced the 
best effects on their crops : 
“ Dissolve 28 lbs. of this manure in a pail by adding 
water in small quantities, stirring it at the same time, 
Urine, 1000 parts. 
Water,. 933.00 
Urea,.• •• 30.10 
Sulphate of potash,. 3.71 
Sulphate of soda. 3.16 
Phosphate of soda,. 2.94 
Muriate of soda (com. 
salt,). 4.45 
Posphate of ammonia, - • ■ 1.65 
Muriate of ammonia,-•• 1.50 
Acetate of ammonia, ) 
Animal matters, $ 
Earthy phosphates and ) - „„ 
Fluate of lime, $ 
Silica and mucus,. 0.35 
until the mixture is of the consistence of cream ; it is 
then poured over the seed intended to be sown on an 
acre of land, and the whole repeatedly turned over, so 
that it appears one uniform mixture ; the seed is then 
to be spread out thin, on the floor to dry, for ten or 
twelve hours, and mixed with a sufficient quantity of 
soot or any kind of ashes, to render it sufficiently fria¬ 
ble or dry to be sown by the hand or by the drill.” 
Prof. Johnson in his valuable papers on manure, has 
the following remarks ou these chemical preparations of 
night soil, particularly the carbonized class, which, when 
properly made, he seems to consider preferable to any 
other of its mixtures. 
“ The preparation of the Messrs. Pottevin of the 
engrais animalize at London, is the same as that of M. 
Payen at Paris. It combines, and succesfully too, the 
great object of driving off the water of nightsoil by a 
gentle heat, after all its gaseous matters have been ab¬ 
sorbed, by mixing it with a portion of newly prepared 
carbon, in the finest possible state of division, than 
which, no known substance has such great powers of 
absorption of all gaseous matters like those which 
abound in, and impart the disagreeable odor of night- 
soil. The presence of the carbon in the manure thus 
prepared, is valuable in two ways ; it gradually com¬ 
bines with the oxygen of the atmosphere, forming in 
the state of carbonic gas, the food of plants ; and at 
the same time, all the gaseous matters of putrefaction, 
with which it is saturated, are thus preserved, stored 
up, as it were, for the use of the roots of the cultivator’s 
crops : nothing is lost, the emission of the gases from 
the slowly dissolving charcoal, being so gradual, as to 
be almost, if not entirely, imperceptible to the senses.” 
The justly famous preparation, called as above, 
‘ Urate,’may be very successfully imitated by the com¬ 
mon farmer who will take the pains to provide a reser¬ 
voir or cistern for the preservation of urine, with 
which, when wanted for distribution with his seed, he 
must mix gypsum or plaster till the urine is absorbed, 
and the mass sufficiently dry to sow with the drill or 
by hand. This is one of the most powerful prepara¬ 
tions on dry or sandy soils that can well be imagined, 
and is one of which every farmer may avail himself to 
a greater or less degree. 
There are at the present two manufactories of 
poudrette and urate in the vicinity of New York ; and 
there is most abundant proof that it constitutes here as 
elsewhere the most valuable class of manures. That 
such manufactories will become common in the neigh¬ 
borhood of our principal cities and towns, where alone 
the materials are to be found, as the value of such ma¬ 
nures, both for their efficiency and portability are bet¬ 
ter understood, we have no doubt. Their use is ra¬ 
pidly converting the vicinity of the principal European 
cities into a garden, and the use of these materials 
which once constituted the greatest nuisances and were 
most productive of diseases, into manures, will not 
have a better effect on the soil, than on the health of 
those congregated masses of human beings. 
Diarrhea in Colts. 
In the Kentucky Farmer of May 22, is an article on 
the above disease, from the pen of Mr. Mentelle, from 
which we make the following extract. We do this, be¬ 
cause the disease is not an uncommon one, and because 
a course of treatment is adopted, which proves injuri¬ 
ous, if not fatal, to the animal. Harsh and active med¬ 
icines in quantities which a horse would hardly bear, 
are employed, it being apparently forgotten that a colt 
bears the same relation to the horse, so far as the action 
of medicine is concerned, that the infant does to the 
man. We lost last year a very valuable colt from this 
disease, aggravated as we have reason to believe, by the 
treatment'he received in attempting to cure him. 
“As soon as the disease is evident, the mare and colt must 
be taken from the pasture if they were at grass, and their treat¬ 
ment must be different, according to the degree of appetite re¬ 
tained by the colt; if he eats or sucks heartily, give him cow’s 
milk boiled with a little flour, and with warm injections of 
mullein, flax-seed tea, or slippery elm; if, on the contrary, the 
animal is without appetite, it is a sign that the evacuation is 
dangerous, and ought to be checked; give something more than 
a quarter of an ounce of assafoetida diluted in one of the above 
teas, which he must be made to swallow milk warm; besides 
which, he must have injections morning and evening until the 
disease seems to be checked, then suppress the evening reme¬ 
dies, and suppress them entirely, as soon as the colt is evi¬ 
dently better. It is more prudent to keep the mare out of pas¬ 
ture, and feed her on dTy hay, &c. A careful attendant on the 
colt, will best know whether to continue the remedies or not. 
Mind that the mother’s milk has a great influence on the colt.” 
Market for Cocoons. 
“State Prison, Auburn, N. YMay 15, 1841. 
“ The subscriber, as agent of said prison, having commenced 
the manufacture of Sowing Silk, by convict labor, will pay three 
dollars per bushel for all the cocoons of a good quality that 
may be offered at this prison, hereafter. Any communications 
upon this subject, addressed to the subscriber; ( post paid,) from 
any part of the United States, will receive immediate atten¬ 
tion. * * * Henky Polhemus, Agent.” 
This we consider an important announcement. If 
the project of manufacturing silk in the prison is suc¬ 
cessful, (and the experiment of last year warrants the 
most favorable anticipations,) it will he felt beneficially 
by the public in various ways ; it will aid the mechan¬ 
ic of the country by giving a different direction to con¬ 
vict labor, it will benefit the small farmer by giving him 
a certain market for a product which his wife or child¬ 
ren can raise with little time or labor, and it will bene¬ 
fit the country by lessening those importations which 
operate so injuriously against the trade and prosperity 
of the United States. Some beautiful sewing silk has 
been made at the prison, and any information in regard 
to any branch of the subject, from the rearing of the 
mulberry trees through the stages of hatching, feeding, 
spinning and killing the cocoons, may be obtained at 
the prison of Mr. Morrison, who has a thorough ac¬ 
quaintance with the subject, having long superintended 
an extensive silk mill in Europe. One of the greatest 
obstacles to the growing of silk, (a fixed and certain 
market for cocoons,) being now removed, we may hope 
that the culture will receive the attention which it seems 
to us to deserve, as a sure and profitable branch of do¬ 
mestic industry. 
Panning without Hum. 
Whoever commenced the Temperance Reformation, 
was, in truth, a benefactor to the human race. From 
the highways and byways, from the borders of the 
abyss of degradation, if not from the depths of the 
abyss itself, thousands will rise up to call that man bless¬ 
ed, who has saved them from themselves. Great as 
are the talents of O’Connell, there is an unpretending 
priest, who is at the present moment doing mare to el¬ 
evate, disenthral, and regenerate Ireland, than a thou¬ 
sand O’Connells, without his aid, could have done. 
Wherever Father Mathew goes, the distilleries become 
useless, the pig gets an extra quantity of corn, the wife 
a new dress, and the laborer sheds his rags for a new 
coat, saved from earnings that formerly went to brutal¬ 
ize and impoverish himself and family. Scarcely less 
striking has been the result of abstaining from the com¬ 
mon use of ardent spirits in the United States, and in 
no department of industry, has this influence been 
more beneficially felt than in that of agriculture. Of this 
no one, we believe, doubts, who has made the experi¬ 
ment of farming without rum, or in other words, ban¬ 
ishing ardent spirits from his farming operations. 
We are well aware there were thousands, in fact 
nearly every farmer in the country, who, when the idea 
of farming without the use of ardent spirits was first 
proposed, deemed it wild and visionary, if not impossi¬ 
ble. So intimate had the associations of work and rum 
become in the minds of most men, that to separate them 
—to undertake to break in upon long established usage 
-—to get in a harvest, or erect a building, without such 
drinks, required no little exercise of reason and inde¬ 
pendence of feeling. Many who were convinced the 
practice was useless, hesitated about abolishing it, lest 
the withholding spirits should he charged to a penurious 
disposition. Good sense, however, and a feeling of 
right prevailed; rum was banished from the harvest 
field and the raising, in numerous instances, and it was 
found that none of the injurious effects anticipated by 
many, followed. There was no want of laborers ; the 
coarse grains still commanded good prices ; and four or 
five distilleries in every town ceased to produce and 
distribute misery and death. 
In those neighborhoods, and on those farms from which 
intoxicating drinks have been banished, those revolting 
scenes unfortunately once too common, are now no 
longer seen. We remember when it was the custom to 
find each laborer in the harvest field with his pint of 
spirits daily, that there was frequently more waste from 
the effect of the drink, than their labor cost. We have 
seen in the harvest field by the middle of the after¬ 
noon the reaper so blue that he was as likely to cut off 
his own fingers as the grain, and compelled to resort to 
a corner of the fence and a nap, to restore a capacity 
for work. We have seen half a dozen cradiers racing it 
through a wheatfield like madmen, yelping and yell¬ 
ing like savages, throwing the grain behind them with¬ 
out care or thought, and causing a waste greater than 
as many swine would have done, even had they been of 
the most approved alligator breeds. We have seen a 
dozen men reeling home from a raising to sleep away 
the liquor that had stolen away their reason, or, as 
was most likely, to abuse their wives and children. 
Now, where temperance principles prevail, such scenes 
are never witnessed ; and their influence can he traced 
in the mitigation of these evils, even where they are 
not yet fully triumphant. 
The proper source of ability to labor is found in food; 
this alone nourishes and confers strength. Ardent 
spirits give no nourishment; they only stimulate ; and 
all experience proves, that all expenditure of power, not 
based on the true source of supply, can only be tempora¬ 
ry, and must produce results the most injurious to the in¬ 
dividual. The correct course, then, is to substitute the 
nutritive for the stimulant; healthful for the injurious ; 
habits that too frequently end in ruin for those that 
are certainly safe and honorable. 
If there is a single reader of the Cultivator, who 
has never made a trial of farming without rum, we 
ask him as a friend to make it thoroughly the present 
season, and then to judge for himself. The experiment 
is not now an untried and hazardous one ; it encoun¬ 
ters no opposing public opinion, nor subjects the farmer 
to the charge of eccentricity or niggardliness ; and it is 
not one which might once have been considered as tam¬ 
pering with the health of the workingman. The man 
who labors must have food in abundance, and of the 
best kind ; he must have drink too, hut this should not 
he ardent spirit. Good home-brewed malt beer, milk 
and water, sweetened water slightly acidulated, and a 
little ginger added, are all good drinks, all contain nour¬ 
ishment,'and will allay thirst, at least as effectually as 
ai’dent spirits. Discontinue rum and whiskey, and try 
these ; take a biscuit and some cheese, instead of a 
drink of grog, forenoon and afternoon ; eat your meals 
regularly, and labor reasonably, and our word for it, 
