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ashes, or other substances; or it may at once be applied, mixed with water, to grass lands, turnips, mangel-wurzel, or other crops, on which it never fails to produce the most salutary effects. By mixing urine with an equal quantity of water, its fertilizing powers are materially increased.

In Holland, and in Belgium, the system here described is invariably followed, whatever the size of the farm may be; and the comfort enjoyed by the agricultural population of these countries, is in a great measure owing to their careful attention to those minute, and often apparently trifling matters, upon which, in fact, success in everything so much depends.

In forming the layers of compost in the dung-pit, care should be taken to select such materials as will be most suitable to the soil intended to be manured. If the land is strong and clayey, add ashes, or sand, to render it less adhesive. If it be thin and gravelly, clay will be most serviceable.

Straw is the chief ingredient of farm-yard dung, and it should be collected and managed with care, the fertility of your fields depending in a great degree upon the way in which this is done. Every ton of straw, if rightly managed, will yield three tons of manure. An acre of turnips consumed by the cattle, giving them at the same time a suitable quantity of straw, will produce from ten to fifteen loads of good manure; and if due care be likewise taken to collect the roadscrapings, weeds, and refuse of every kind on the farm, there will be sufficient for well manuring the land once in every four years, taking the courses in succession.

When there is an opportunity of getting sea-weed, it ought to be collected, and, if not immediately ploughed in, it should be formed into compost with the dung from your pit, and sand, mould, or ashes, and allowed to heat in the heap; but care must be taken that, in case of becoming too hot, the fermentation is stopped, which may be effected by covering the whole with a coating of earth. Indeed, all the dung ought to be so covered occasionally; for whenever the manure is

seen smoking it is losing in value, and earth thrown over it imbibes the evaporating gas, and becomes enriched thereby.

Exposure to the air always injures manure; and when carried to the field it ought not to be allowed to stand open for any time, but it should be immediately covered in, and the juices saved from evaporation. What is dropped, or allowed to lie open in the fields, becomes in a short time, from the effects of sun and rain, comparatively valueless. Thus the dung and litter from your cows, if milked in the field, should be collected and carried home, or else be gathered into heaps and kept covered till wanted.

Every animal contributes towards its own support, by producing manure for succeeding crops, and it is the farmer's duty to take care that this provision of nature is not wasted. Housing your cattle at all seasons, not only ensures a supply of valuable manure for your land, but also secures a better produce and better health for the animals. There can be no doubt on this point, and it would be well if our milking-cows were everywhere grassed as little as those of a London dairyman, or a Dutch or Belgian farmer. The manure collected in summer from green food, and when the animals are in high condition, is much superior to that produced by the lean and ill-fed cattle of winter.

There are a great variety of substances, besides farmyard manure, which promote vegetation, and are valuable to the farmer according to the facility with which they can be procured, and their suitableness to different soils. Coal, wood, and turf ashes, burnt clay, soot, gypsum, salt, malt-dust, &c., improve grass lands, especially if inclined to moss, or if the herbage is of a coarse or bad quality. Gypsum, salt, and malt-dust, must be used at first sparingly, as they are great stimulants, and would injure vegetation if laid on too freely; but a few trials would show the quantity necessary on different soils. Soap-boiler's shavings is a most valuable article for top-dressing, especially on cold land. Oyster and other shells, furriers' clippings, horn shavings, woollen rags, &c., have all their respective fertilizing

properties, and should be sought after by every farmer who is anxious to make the most of his land.

The substances which have been withdrawn from the soil, in the crops which it has produced for the use of man and animals, must be restored to it in some shape, before it can again yield a like produce.

The vineyards on the Rhine used to be manured annually, at a great expense, in order to keep up their fertility; but of late years it has been discovered that the prunings of the vines in July and August, afford the readiest and best means of restoring to the soil the fertilizing matter which had been withdrawn from it, in the growth and nourishment of the plant. The branches of the vines, immediately they are pruned, are now cut into small pieces and mingled with the soil, and their decomposition is so soon effected, that at the end of a few weeks, no traces of them can be found. The fertility of a vineyard may thus be secured for almost an indefinite period, with little or no application of manure, excepting that which is obtained from the vines themselves; and the same would doubtless be the case with currant and gooseberry bushes, and with vegetable productions generally, if the leaves, branches, and refuse were restored to the soil in the way now practised in the vineyards bordering on the Rhine.

Provided the fertilizing matter which has been abstracted from the soil in the growth of the crop, is again restored to it, it is perhaps not very material how the restoration is accomplished: and it has been said, by a high authority, that "a time may come when fields will be manured with a solution of glass (silicate of potash), with the ashes of burnt straw, and with salts of phosphoric acid, prepared in chemical manufactories, exactly as at present medicines are given for fever and goître."*

The foregoing observations apply to manures generally-a subject of vast importance to the farmer, whose success will in a great measure depend on the manner in which he collects and applies these fertilizing substances. We will now more particularly describe a few * Professor Liebig.

of the chief of them, and at the same time suggest the best mode of applying them to the land.

Lime, is considered the most valuable of the fossil manures, and for cold mossy soils it is indispensable. It may be obtained in most situations, and should be covered from wet, and not slaked till laid upon the land. It must then be regularly spread, and immediately harrowed in with the seed, but not too deeply, for lime ought to be kept near the surface. Lime is also extremely useful as a compost, and as a top-dressing for grass land; but it is comparatively useless, if laid on wet undrained land. The quantity used must depend upon the nature of the soil; for whilst 80 bushels per acre is sufficient for sandy soils, loams will require 100, and clay 150 bushels per statute acre.

Quick-lime decomposes any hard vegetable substance in the soil, and converts it into food for the cultivated plants; and hence its value when applied to mossy land. It improves a soil destitute of calcareous matter. It separates the particles of stiff soils, making them more friable, and acts upon light soils, by making them more firm and adhesive, thus rendering both soils better adapted for the growth of plants.

The benefit to be derived from lime, greatly depends, however, upon the nature and the state of the soil. Strong lands are much improved for two or three crops by this stimulant, but frequent repetitions will not have the same good effect, unless the land in the interim has been placed under a clover or other green crop, by which vegetable matter will be introduced for the lime to act upon.

The deficiency of vegetable matter in light soils, is one chief reason why lime does not always act upon them beneficially; and it should therefore be used very sparingly on these soils, with an interval of six or seven years between each liming. Indeed, it is often as necessary to change the mode of manuring land, as it is to change the crops to be cultivated; and it is from not sufficiently attending to this, that arable farms have become deteriorated, whilst the farmer fancied that he was doing great justice to the land by liming every

third or fourth year. But let the introduction of a green crop be tried in such a case, and the farmer will afterwards find his crops of corn increase, and his land in better heart.

On the first application of lime to land abounding in vegetable matter, it should be laid on in a hot state. Its effects when so applied will continue, so long as it finds vegetable matter to act upon; but when lime is applied to land constantly in tillage, it has little or no vegetable matter to act upon, and therefore can have comparatively but little effect. On the cold peaty lands in Derbyshire, they lay on as much as two inches thick of lime in the spring, which by the end of summer completely decomposes the coarse grasses, and brings up an excellent herbage; but lime in such quantity would destroy vegetation, if applied on thin soils, or worn-out fallows.

Some persons think, from witnessing its first effects, that they can always have recourse to lime with the same success; but in this they will assuredly be disappointed once in five, six, or seven years, according to the nature of the land, is as often as lime can be applied with advantage.

Experience proves, that if lime be frequently used, it must be applied as manure, and not singly as a stimulant; and to this end, it must be compounded with earth, clay, and other matter, to which it communicates its stimulating qualities, whilst its fertilizing effects are thereby augmented. In this state it will act powerfully as a manure, and be a valuable auxiliary in the hands of the farmer.

Most varieties of subsoil strata make good compounds with lime. Sand and lime, with peat or turf, if it can be obtained, should be mixed for a clay soil; and subsoil clay and lime, for sands, gravels, loams, and peaty lands. No farmer need complain of want of materials to make fertilizing compounds, since every sort of soil may be used for this purpose; and not only is immediate fertility produced thereby, but there are few districts in the kingdom, however barren, that may not be improved, or brought into a fertile state, by dressing with a well-proportioned mixture of earth, clay,

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