A PRIZE ESSAY. 
55 
venting the waste of the volatile and most valuable 
parts of the decaying animal substances, by covering 
them in with earth, soil, &c. These imbibe the es¬ 
caping virtue or strength, and become rich and fer¬ 
tilizing. It remains to state, that every pound of ani¬ 
mal carcass can impregnate ten pounds of vegetable 
mould; or, taking our arable soils as they usually oc¬ 
cur, one pound of flesh, fish, blood, wool, horn, &c., 
can fertilize three hundred pounds of common loam. 
You will see, therefore, reader, how little you have 
now to learn of the necessity of saving everything in 
the shape of animal matters, and converting them to 
manure, by turning them into your compost heap. It 
is to be remarked, that the dry forms of animal sub¬ 
stances undergo the process of decay when left to their 
own action very slowly. Wool, hair, flocks, horn 
shavings, &c., or even leather chips and curriers’ 
shavings, bear long exposure, and seem quite in¬ 
destructible. They yet are rich in all the true virtue 
of manure. They want something to bring this out, 
to set them a-working, to bring on fermentation. 
Well, on this head we may lay down two rules. The 
first is, that if buried among a heap of fermenting 
matter, that communicates a similar change to these 
dry, animal substances. This is slow work. 
The second rule is, that if these dry matters are 
buried in the soil among the roots of growing plants, 
then these act more powerfully than fermentation, and 
the dry substances are converted to manure with a 
speed which may be called quick, compared to the 
fermenting process. The practical lesson to be drawn 
from these differences of action between the fleshy 
and horny parts of animals is, that when you want a 
quick and short action of manure, to use the fleshy 
and fluid parts. Where you want a more slow and 
permanent action, to commence and long last after 
the first is over, to use the dryer and harder parts. 
If now we turn to the other division of mould, that 
from vegetables, we find it lacking in the very thing 
