farmers; but before the advice will be taken, or the admonition listened to, it will be necessary for him who admonishes to show that dissimilar motives induce the adoption of the same practice in different countries, a proposition which will be found difficult to solve; and yet the proposal to adopt certain foreign practices in our country would be as difficult to practise if proposed in plain terms; for the motive of the Fleming, the German, and the Swiss farmer, in applying liquid manure to their crops in summer, is to counteract the injurious effects of the ordinary heat and drought which are experienced by them in that season; and, in order to possess liquid manure for that purpose, all the live-stock in Germany and Flanders, and part of those in Switzerland, are kept constantly in the house; and further, to provide abundance of food for the stock, when so confined, much industry is exerted to raise forage in those countries in summer. The same summer heat and drought stint the growth of the straw of their cereal crops.

2036. Now, no such motive exists in this country, and therefore it is, and for no other reason for depend upon it, where an intelligent people perceive an advantage, they will, ere long, use the means of obtaining it-the Continental practice does not prevail here.

In ordi

nary years, we do not need to counteract the baleful effects of drought in summer, that season being no more than hot enough, and therefore our green crops, and the straw of our cereal ones, grow luxuriantly; and as the same cause encourages the growth of perennial grasses, our cattle, instead of being confined in the house all summer, are put out to pasture on them, very much to the saving of labour; and this difference in the climates is sufficient to explain our apparent want of industry, when compared with the constant toil imposed by their climate upon the agricultural population of Germany, Belgium, and Switzerland, who are observed by travellers working in the fields from early dawn to sunset; and whose patient industry, thus displayed, is very naturally the theme of much of the laudation which has been bestowed upon them by observers, who look no farther than on the surface of things.

ON THE FORMING OF COMPOSTS IN WINTER.

may

be collected at the very commencement of winter-such as the quicken or couch grass collected in the fields, while preparing them for the green crops of last year; the dried potato haulms collected on raising the potato; the scourings of ditches, and the weeds destroyed during summer; the dried leaves that may have fallen in the end of autumn; any moss or turf that may be available on the farm; and any vegetable matter whatsoever.

2039. Immediately after a rainy day, when the land is in such a state of wetFig. 193.

THE MUD HOE OR HARLE.

ness as to prevent work being done upon it, and the horses have nothing particular to do, two or three of the men should each take a mud hoe or harle, such as fig. 193, and rake the loose straws and liquid mud on all the roads around the steading to the lowest side of the roads, and as much as possible out of the way of carts and people passing along; while the rest should take graips and shovels, and form the raked matter into heaps, to be led away, when it will bear lifting, to the compost-heap. The best state for the roads near the steading in winter, is to have a hard and smooth surface, and this they will have, with an inclination that causes the water to run easily into a ditch hard by. A scraping now and then with the mud hoe will make such a road dry and comfortable, even in winter.

2040. Where there is plenty of straw, as on clay farms, some farmers put it upon the roads around the steading, to trample it down and wet it with rain, and then lead it to the dunghill in the field. The object aimed at of wetting the straw is attained, but such a littering makes the roads very damp and plashy.

2041. The carriage of mould, as the

principal ingredient of a compost, is laborious work. With such, a compost is best made on the spot where the soil is found; but when the foundation of a new building or wall affords mould which must be removed at any rate, it should be used in compost, and will repay the trouble of removal. Other materials than mould may, and indeed must, be carried, to form bases when composts are formed; such as sawdust, spent tanners' bark, rape-cake, and refuse of manufactures of sundry kinds. Lime must also be brought to mix with some of them, and without it few composts will be made useful. The refuse productions of the farm must also be carried to the same convenient places.

2042. On laying down the haulms of potatoes or twitch for compost, it is usual to throw down the loads in the corner of the field or elsewhere, without the least regard to order; and the excuse is, that when the potato crop is taking up, every hand is too busily employed to attend to such unimportant things. The potato crop and the weeds ought to be gathered in a proper manner; but that is no reason why the refuse created by them should be mismanaged, and cause future labour and expense. Instead of throwing down the potato stems and twitch any how, a field-, labourer should be stationed at the compost-stance, wherever it is, and throw them with a graip into a heap of regular form, when the materials will not only occupy the least space of ground, but be in the best state to receive any additions of liquid or solid matter, and then the most perishable portions of the materials might be covered with the more durable, and placed in the best state to preserve their properties. The neglect I complain of-of apparently unimportant materials-arises from this cause. There is a strong tendency in farmers and stewards, when conducting any labour in the fields, to do what they consider the least important part of the work in haste, unthinkingly forgetting that correction of hasty work often creates more trouble than the portion of the work for which it was neglected is probably worth. Many instances might be given of two-handed work occasioned by such haste. For example, were a field-worker or two placed where the haulms of the potatoes are carried to form a future compost-heap,

they would form the heap according to instructions previously received, as the cart-loads are laid down; and as soon as the carriage of the refuse was finished, so would also be the formation of the nucleus of the future compost-heap. But when the haulms are laid down at random by ploughmen anxious to get quit of their loads, considerably more labour will be required to make them into the same form of heap, and the work in the end will not be so well done. Thus, one woman with a light graip will form a heap of as much loose material laid before her in a small quantity at one time, as 3 or 4 women could do the same work, with the same quantity of matter scattered confusedly about. The additional trouble and expense in putting together materials thrown down and scattered, is no saving in the end.

2043. The subject of composts, when followed out in all its bearings, is an extensive one,-for there is not a single article of refuse on a farm but what may form an ingredient of a compost, and be converted into a manure fit for one or more of the cultivated crops. At the same time, great labour attends the formation of composts of every kind, as the materials cannot be collected together without horse-labour; and in summer the labours of the field are most important, when those materials are most abundant; and to employ then the time required to collect them, would be to sacrifice part of the time that should be occupied in indispensable field-labour. The most economical mode of forming composts is to collect the materials at times when leisure occurs, and put them together in compost-heaps, as they are brought in quantities to the compost-stance. This advice will not suit the temper of those who, wishing to obtain their object at once, would make the forming of composts a principal business; but every piece of work should have its legitimate period for its execution. I speak in this matter from experience, and, having been impressed with the utility of composts, and possessing abundance of materials at my command for making what I conceived should be good manure, I persuaded myself that composts might be made to any extent on a farm. Having access to rough bog-turf and peat, dry leaves, black mould, quicken, potato haulms, shell marl, fine clay, and

lime-shells, I was favourably situated for making composts. But little did I anticipate the labour I had undertaken. Two years convinced me that it was no child's play to collect together these materials into one or two places, and cart them out again to the fields destined to receive them in the amended form. The labour is not to be overtaken with the ordinary strength of a farm, and, if done in a systematic manner, must be so with men and horses appointed for the purpose, or it should be done when leisure warrants the undertaking. I put together the materials in the best manner I could devise or hear of, turned them at proper times with the greatest care, and enjoyed the satisfaction of possessing a large quantity of good stuff, -and I invariably found that the oldest made compost looked richest, most uniform n its texture, and most active in its effects, and most like old rotten muck; but, notwithstanding its favourable appearance, unless very large quantities were applied, little benefit was derived from it-so that even from 40 to 50 cart-loads to the imperial acre did not produce so good an effect as 12 cart-loads of good muck. I managed the manual part easily, as labourers undertook it by piece-work; but the horselabour was overpowering, for every acre thus imposed a cartage of 80 to 100 loads, to manure it even insufficiently. An extra pair of horses and a man could not have overtaken the additional labour, and to incur such an expense for the problematical good to be derived from composts above guano or bone-dust, which are easily carried, is more than the most sanguine farmer is warranted in believing.

2044. I may relate a few of the composts I made with those materials. The first was a compound of peat-turf and limeshells. The turf was wheeled to the margin of the bog on hard land, and allowed to lie some weeks, to drip the water out of it, and to make it lighter for cartage. The lime was mixed in the proportion of 1 cart of lime to 27 of turf. After the compound was twice turned, the mass became a fine greasy pulp, in the course of a few weeks in spring and the early part of summer, so greasy, that no one could walk on it without slipping. It was applied to

good turnip land, to raise turnips, and the rule adopted to determine the quantity requisite for an acre was, in the first place, to fill the drills with it, and the quantity required to do this was from 30 to 40 double cart-loads per acre. The crop of white turnips was only tolerable, and certainly not nearly equal to what was raised in the same field with 12 loads of farmyard dung, while the field became troublesomely covered with the bog-thistle, as also the common field-thistle, and a few of the burr-thistle, the lime not having been in sufficient quantity to destroy the vitality of the thistle-seed contained in the turf, though the degree of heat created in the mass to reduce it to a pulp was considerable. The proportion of the lime ought to have been about 1 load to 3 of turfy peat.

2045. Another compost was made of peat-turf and farm-yard dung, with a sprinkling of lime, as directed by the late Lord Meadowbank in his celebrated treatise on that subject, and which you may consult.* The effect produced from this was better than the former compost, but still not equal to the usual quantity of dung.

2046. A mixture of lime and black mould, made on head-ridges upon which too much earth had accumulated, was applied before the land was drilled up and dunged for turnips, only to thicken the soil; and the labour was not thrown away. The lime, however, ought to have been in the proportion of 1 of lime to 3 of mould.

2047. I tried a compost of rape-cake and mould, the broken cake being sprinkled on while the earth was turning over, and a very brisk fermentation was produced in the mass. After the heat had nearly subsided, it was applied for turnips, with much success. Unfortunately, no account was taken of the exact number of cartloads per acre of this or any of the other composts applied, such particulars being then seldom noted by farmers, who chiefly supplied the quantity of manure by judg ment. Now, however, a better system prevails, when every particular application is weighed or measured with exactness.

2048. Shell-marl and bog-turf, when mixed, produced no heat, and of course were not reduced into a uniform mass, for without the agency of heat it is impossible to make any compost homogeneous.

2049. Bog-turf burnt produced ashes which varied much in their specific gravities; those of white colour being light and ineffective as a manure, whilst the red coloured were heavy, earthy in appearance, and well suited to raise turnips; but I was unable to distinguish beforehand which turf would yield the white and which the red ashes. The trouble attending the casting of bog-turf, wheeling it to the side, exposing it to the air to dry, and afterwards burning it to ashes, or carting it away for compost, was much greater than the quantity of ashes or the quality of the compost obtained would compensate.

2050. Two years' labour with the concoction of these materials were sufficient to give me a distaste for the business, and at length I dropped it, and went to the neighbouring towns to purchase street, stable, or cow-house manure, and bonedust. These never disappointed me, and the eating off the turnips, which they raised every year, with sheep, soon put the soil into a fertile state.

2051. Notwithstanding this resolution, I made a point every year of making up a large compost-heap of the twitch gathered from the fallow land, while it was preparing for the turnips,-of the potato haulms, as they were harrowed together, and of the dried leaves, which would otherwise have blown about the lawn and shrubberies, and of any other refuse that could be collected together on the farm. These, with the assistance of a little fresh horse-dung, and of such water as the liquidmanure tank, which was situate in the compost-court, afforded, formed a compost which assisted in extending the boundaries of the turnip crop; and if that portion of the crop was not always the heaviest, the larger proportion of the turnips growing on it, being eaten off by the sheep, enabled it to produce its share of the succeeding corn crop and grass, while the soil was

deepened by the mould obtained from the compost.

2052. Animals that fall by disease, when their carcasses are subdivided, and mixed with a large quantity of earth, make a compost far superior to vegetable materials, for raising turnips, especially swedes.

2053. The produce of privies, pigeons' dung, the dung of fowls, form excellent ingredients for dissolving in the liquid manure in the tank, and afterwards mixing with a compost-heap.

2054. Of late years, sawdust, long considered a useless article as a manure, and which may be obtained in quantity where saw-mills are at work, is now made useful on being mixed with farm-yard dung, fermented to a considerable degree of heat, and then subdued with water;* or mixed with one-tenth of its proportion with lime and road scrapings, and kept in compost for 3 years. Such composts have raised turnips, as evidenced by the experience of Mr William Sim, Drummond, Inverness-shire, and Mr H. H. Drummond of Blair-Drummond, Perthshire.

2055. Spent tanner's-bark, when laid for a time on the road around the steading, and trampled under foot and bruised by cart-wheels, and formed into a compost with dung or lime, and allowed to stand a considerable time, is rendered a good manure for turnips. Sawdust, tanner'sbark, and the refuse of the bark of firtrees, will not bear the expense of a long carriage; but where a supply of them is at hand, their decomposition, though slow, is worth the trouble, because their effect is durable.

2056. In the vicinity of villages where fish are cured and smoked for market, refuse of fish heads and guts make an excellent compost with earth. Near Eyemouth and Burnmouth, on the Berwickshire coast, 30 barrels of fish refuse, with as much earth from the head-ridges as will completely cover the heap, are sufficient for an imperial acre. The barrel contains 30 gallons, and 4 barrels make a cart

load, and the barrel sells for 18. 6d. From 400 to 600 barrels may be obtained for each farm in the neighbourhood, in the course of the season. Since the opening of the North British railway, the curing of the fish is given up, much to the loss of the farmers in that locality; and the fishermen now send, by the railway, the fish in a fresh state to the larger towns at a distance. Thus, railways produce advantage to some, whilst they cause loss to others. In the northern counties of Scotland, fish refuse is obtained in large quantities, during the herring fishing season. On the coast of Cornwall, the pilchard fishing affords a large supply of refuse for composts.

2057. Whale-blubber mixed with earth forms a good compost for turnips. This most caustic substance, in a fresh state, should be mixed with a large proportion of earth, and the compost kept for at least years. I have seen a blubber compost, 2 years old, on top-dressing grass, burn up every plant by the roots.

3

2058. I have heard of a compost of whin and broom cuttings and earth, 3 loads of earth to 1 of the cuttings, mixed and watered for 2 or 3 days, and remaining untouched for 8 or 10 more, when turned, and again allowed to rest for other 10 days, become a fit compost for wheat or oats. The cost of making this compost was estimated at 28. per cart-load.

66

2059. "Whilst fallowing a field," observes Mr Rowlandson, overrun with weeds, twitch, &c., I had the weeds, after being well harrowed, carted to the yard, and placed between 2 layers of fresh horsemanure. As it was my intention to apply the whole as manure to potatoes, I thought it would be advantageous to throw a little nitrate of soda on the weeds, &c. This was done, and a strong fermentation took place; and the whole of the weeds were converted, in the course of 10 days, into a rich black mass. All the workpeople attributed this to this to the saltpetre, as they called it, being used.

I

am inclined to think that the heat generated by the horse-manure caused the weeds rapidly to decompose; and as

matter in a state of decay has the property of absorbing oxygen from all other matters with which they come in contact, it is probable that a portion of the nitric acid of the nitrate of soda was decomposed. A very heavy shower of rain fell between the time of mixing the weeds, &c., and the period of removing them to the fields; and I never remembered such a quantity of deep-coloured fluid to exude from so small a mass of manure, evincing that a great quantity of humic acid had been formed, which was probably combined with the soda of the nitrate and ammonia of the decomposed horse-manure, and, not improbably, with the ammonia formed by the decomposition of the nitric acid." *

2060. The solid refuse of manufactures may all be made available for composts; such as the soiled substances from woollen waste,-shoddy, consisting of the short ends and refuse of wool,-croppings, the ends of wool cut off the surface of cloth and merino fabrics,-sweepings, the short dust separated from the wool,-and singeing-dust, obtained on stuff goods being passed quickly over flames of gas; as also flax-waste, obtained from the manufacture of flax, and soap-boilers' refuse, all which, when combined with earth, moistened with liquids, and fermented, form active composts for green and grain crops.

2061. Of the liquid refuse of manufactures such as the liquid soap-waste, coaltar, gas-lime, ammoniacal liquor, sugarrefiners' refuse-a compost might be made with earth, or peat, or turf, or any substance which will absorb them, and may be applied to grass land and growing crops as top-dressings with success, after they have undergone active fermentation.†

ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF LIQUID-MANURE TANKS, AND CARTS.