188 
nourishment. The feces or solid excrements 
consist of undigested or ill-digested remains of 
vegetables, alkaline and earthy salts, and oxides 
derived from vegetable food and water, refuse se- 
cretions from the animals’ own bodies, and some 
peculiar compound substances formed partly out 
of their food, and partly out of their refuse secre- 
tions; and urine or liquid excrement consists 
principally of water holding in solution mucus, 
albumen, urea, uric acid, hippuric acid, am- 
monia, and various kinds of salts and other sub- 
stances. The several matters hitherto detected 
by chemical analysis in animal excrements are 
water, vegetable or woody fibre, wax and resin, 
chlorophyle or the green colouring matter of 
leaves, deposited humus, a fatty substance, mu- 
cus, a peculiar brown colouring matter, vegetable 
| albumen, animal gelatine, animal fibre, salivary 
matter, osmazome, hippuric acid, uric acid, lactic 
| acid, benzoic acid, urea, bilious matter, bilious 
resin, picromel, oxide of iron, oxide of manga- 
nese, silica, alumina, magnesia, common salt, 
various alkaline salts, ammonia, hydrogen, car- 
buretted hydrogen, phosphuretted hydrogen, and 
sulphuretted hydrogen. But chemical analysis 
of excrements is so very vile and repugnant a 
process, that few will attempt it in any form, and 
even these few in but a slovenly manner; and 
were it carefully and searchingly conducted, it 
| would very probably detect many more sub- 
stances, particularly of the unique kind which 
are formed in the interior organism under the 
| combined agencies of organic chemistry and ani- 
mal life. 
The composition and the manurial value of 
animal excrements are greatly modified by the 
age of the animals, their kind, their mode of em- 
ployment, the quality and quantity of their food, 
and the quality and quantity of their drink A 
| considerable quantity of lime, nitrogen, and 
phosphoric acid is required for the formation of 
the bones of young animals, and of carbon, sul- 
phur, chlorine, and soda, for the growth of their 
bodies; and as these substances are obtained 
only from food—which generally is of the same 
nature when the animal is young as when it is 
adult—the proportion of them in the excrements 
of young animals must be considerably less than 
in those of old animals. Manure from young 
stock, accordingly, has long been known to far- 
mers to be much inferior in power to manure 
from adult stock; and, on account of its defi- 
ciency in nitrogenous ingredients, it is peculiarly 
ill suited for crops of wheat, barley, beans, clover, 
and turnips.—Some kinds of animals secrete cer- 
tain elements of food which others reject ; some 
masticate their food into a state of much finer 
trituration than others; and some very thor- 
oughly digest their food, while others only half- 
digest it; and hence two animals of different 
species, fed on the same food, and in the same sit- 
| uation, yield excrementitious manures of widely 
‘ments of manure. 
ANIMAL MANURES. 
for the chemical constitution of their body or for 
the formation of their milk, more nitrogen and 
phosphate of lime than sheep ; and sheep require, 
for the formation of their wool, more sulphur and 
common salt than cows; so that if a cow and a 
sheep be fed on the same pasture, the excrements 
of the former will contain an excess of sulphur 
and salt, and those of the latter an excess of 
nitrogen and phosphate of lime. Sheep both 
chew and digest their food much more thoroughly 
than cows, reducing it to a state of much finer 
attrition in the mouth, and extracting from it a 
much larger proportion of nourishment in the 
intestines; and hence, when a sheep and a cow 
are fed on the same pasture, the excrements of 
the former will operate more rapidly on the soil 
than those of the latter, but will exert much less 
manurial power, and operate for a considerably 
shorter period——When animals are so poorly fed 
as to lose flesh, they very thoroughly digest their 
food; but when so well fed as to become fattened, 
they secrete but a portion of the nutritious mat- 
ter which they eat; so that their excrements in 
the former case are poor and exhausted, and in 
the latter case are very strong, and contain much 
of the elements of nutrition and much refuse 
animal matter. The more nutritious the food is, 
provided it be in quantity and condition to fat- 
ten, the stronger are the excrements resulting 
from it, and the more do they abound in the im- 
portant elements of phosphorus, sulphur, soda, | 
potash, chlorine, lime, magnesia, and nitrogen. | 
Excrement from scalded food for oxen, in conse- 
quence of the woody fibre and other hard vege- 
table matter having been softened by the process 
of scalding, will operate more quickly upon soil 
than excrement from unscalded food, but will 
exert a much inferior amount of manurial power. 
The free use of common salt in the food of fatting | 
stock occasions a great increase in the fertilizing 
power of their excrements; and a plentiful use 
of pond or river water by any species of animal 
involves a considerable increase in the saline ele- 
An ox daily drinks eighty 
pounds or upwards of water; and this quantity 
of most kinds of pond or river water contains 
from half an ounce to an ounce of saline matters, 
consisting of gypsum, common salt, phosphate of 
lime, carbonate of lime, carbonate of potash, and 
carbonate of magnesia; so that, in the course of 
a year, about sixteen pounds of these saline mat- 
ters, obtained from drink and discharged by ex- 
crement, are supplied by an ox to a statute acre 
of land. A sickly animal, in consequence of im- 
paired digestion, usually yields stronger manure 
than an animal in perfect health; and animals 
in summer, in consequence of enfeebling heat 
and relaxed muscle, usually yield stronger man- | 
ure than during the braced nerve and robust 
health enjoyed in winter. Animal excrements 
may always be regarded as great in manurial 
power when they pass quickly into the putrefac- 
different composition and power. Cows require, , tion state, and develop a large quantity of pun- 
