Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/376

Rh 350 AGRICULTURE [MANURES. its place by means of a spring, and a fresh supply of the earth falls upon it from the box.&quot; 1 This scheme has now been tested for a sufficient length of time, and on a wide enough scale, to show that in the case of private houses in rural districts, as well as in prisons, asylums, hospitals, public schools, military camps, and fac tories, it is entirely successful as regards the sanitary results of its use, and the value of the manure when applied to gardens attached to the premises from which it is obtained. But the cost and annoyance of moving so bulky a substance, and the small percentage of fertilising matter contained in it, forbid the expectation of its being adopted in towns. Section 8. Sea-Weed. Along our sea-board large supplies of useful manure are obtained in the shape of drifted sea-weed. This is either applied as a top-dressing to grass and clover, ploughed in with a light furrow, for various crops, or mixed in dung- heaps. It requires to be used in large quantities per acre from 40 to 60 loads and is evanescent in its effects. Grain grown on land manured with sea-weed is generally of fine quality, and is in repute as seed corn. Section 9. Manure Crops. Crops of Buckwheat, Rape, Vetches, and Mustard are some times ploughed in, while in a green, succulent state, to enrich the land. It is, however, more usual to fold sheep on such crops, and so to get the benefit of them as forage, as well as manure to the land. The leaves of turnips are frequently ploughed in after removing the bulbs, and have a powerful fertilising effect. Section 10. Lime. Besides manures of an animal and vegetable origin, vari ous mineral substances are used for this purpose. The most important and extensively used of these is lime. In the drier parts of England it is not held in much esteem, whereas in the western and northern counties, and in Scot land, its use is considered indispensable to good farming. Experienced farmers in Berwickshire consider it desirable to lime the land every twelve years, at the rate of from 120 to 200 bushels of the unslacked lime per acre. It is found especially beneficial in the reclaiming of moory and boggy lands, on which neither green nor grain crops thrive until it has been applied to them. Its use is found to improve the quality of grain, and to cause it in some cases to ripen earlier. It facilitates the cleaning of land, certain weeds disappearing altogether for a time after a dressing of lime. It is the only known specific for the disease in turnips called &quot; fingers-and-toes,&quot; on which account alone it is frequently used in circumstances which would otherwise render such an outlay unwarrantable. The practice, still frequent, of tenants at the beginning of a nineteen years lease, liming their whole farm at a cost per acre of from 3 to 5, proves conclusively the high estimation in which this manure is held. The belief in which we fully concur is however gaining ground, that moderate and frequent applications are preferable to these heavy doses at length ened intervals. When bare fallowing was in use, it was commonly to- Vvards the close of that process that lime was applied. Having been carted home and laid down in large heaps, it was, when slaked, spread evenly upon the surface and covered in by a light furrow. It is now frequently spread upon the autumn furrow preparatory to root crops, and worked in by harrowing or grubbing, and sometimes by throwing the land into shallow ridgelets. Another method 1 Manure for the Million, by Rev. Henry Moule, price Id. Mr Moule has also published a pamphlet on the same subject, entitled rational Health and Wealth. much used is to form it into compost with decayed quickens, parings from road-sides and margins of fields, &c., which, after thorough intermixture by frequent turnings, is spread evenly upon the land when in grass. A cheap and effectual way of getting a dressing of such compost thoroughly com minuted and incorporated with the surface soil, is to fold sheep upon it, and feed them there with turnips for a few days. The value of such compost is much enhanced by mixing common salt with the lime and earth, at the rate of one part of salt by measure to two parts of lime. A mixture of these two substances in these proportions prepared under cover, and applied in a powdery state, is much approved as a spring top-dressing for corn crops on light soils. I u whatever way lime is applied, it is important to remember that the carbonic acid which has been expelled from it by subjecting it in the kiln to a red heat, is quickly regained from the atmosphere, to which therefore it should be as little exposed as possible before applying it to the land. A drenching from heavy rain after it is slaked is also fatal to its usefulness. Careful farmers therefore guard against these evils by laying on lime as soon as it is slaked ; or when delay is unavoidable, by coating these heaps with, earth, or thatching them with straw. In order to reap the full benefit of a dressing of lime it must be so applied as, while thoroughly incorporated with the soil, to be kept near the surface. This is more particularly to be attended to in laying down land to pasture. This fact is so well illustrated by an example quoted in the article &quot; Agriculture&quot; in the 7th edition of the present work that we here repeat it. &quot; A few years after 1754,&quot; says Mr Dawson, &quot;having a consider able extent of outfield land in fallow, which 1 wished to lime previous to its being laid down to pasture, and finding that I could not obtain a sufficient quantity of lime for the whole in proper time, I was induced, from observing the effects of fine loam upon the surface of similar soil, even when covered with bent, to try a small quantity of lime on the surface of this fallow, instead of a larger quantity ploughed down in the usual manner. Accordingly, in the autumn, about twenty acres of it were well harrowed in, and then about fifty- six Winchester bushels only, of unslaked lime, were, after being slaked, carefully spread upon each Knglish acre, and immediately well harrowed in. As many pieces of the lime, which had not been fully slaked at first, were gradually reduced to powder by the dews and moisture of the earth, to mix these with the soil, the land was again well harrowed in three or four days thereafter. This land was sown in the spring with oats, with white and red clover and rye-grass seeds, and well harrowed without being ploughed again. The crop of oats was good, the plants of grass sufficiently numerous and healthy ; and they formed a very fine pasture, which continued good until ploughed some years after for corn. &quot; About twelve years afterwards I took a lease of the hilly farm of G rabbet, many parts of which, though of an earthy mould toler ably deep, were too steep and elevated to be kept in tillage. As these lands had been much exhausted by cropping, and were full of couch- grass, to destroy that and procure a cover of fine grass, I fallowed them, and laid on the same quantity of lime per acre, then harrowed and sowed oats and grass-seeds in the spring, exactly as in the last- mentioned experiment. The oats were a full crop, and the plants of grass abundant. Several of these fields have been now above thirty years in pasture, and are still producing white clover and other line grasses ; no bent or fog has yet appeared upon them. It deserves particular notice, that more than treble the quantity of lime was laid upon fields adjoining of a similar soil, but which being fitter for occasional tillage, upon them the lime was ploughed in. These fields were also sown with oats and grass seeds. The latter throve well, and gave a fine pasture the first year; but afterwards the bent spread so fast, that in three years there was more of it than of the finer grasses.&quot; The conclusions which Mr Dawson draws from his ex tensive practice in the use of lime and dung deserve the attention of all cultivators of similar land : &quot; 1. That animal dung dropped upon coarse tenty pasture pro duces little or no improvement upon them ; and that, even when sheep or cattle are confined to a small space, as in the case of folding, their dung ceases to produce any beneficial effects aftfr *. few years, whether the land is continued in pasture or trcc.glit under the plough.