On Fertilizers ... Second edition

Front matter

ON THE FEETILIZEES. BY CUTHBERT W. JOHNSON, ESQ., F.R.S., BARRISTER-AT-LAW, EDITOR OF THE FARMER'S ALMANAC AND CALENDAR AND THE FARMER'S ENCYCLOPÆDIA, CORRESPOND- ING MEMBER OF THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF KONIGSBERG, THE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, THE MARYLAND HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, etc., etc. THIRD EDITION. LONDON: J. RIDGWAY, PICCADILLY. MDCCCLI. LONDON : PRINTED EY JOSEPH ROGERSON, 24, NORFOLK STREET, STRAND.

ADVERTISEMENT.

TO THE THIRD EDITION. In the few years which have elapsed since the publication of the last Edition 'of this work, great and valuable advances have been made, not only in the introduction of new manures, but in the more profitable management of old and generally used fertilizers. The very extended introduction of Guano, Superphosphate of Lime, &c, have been circumstances which have marked that eventful period to Agriculture. Such noble efforts, indeed, to improve the produce of the soil have in all recent times distinguished the Farmers of Great Britain. To them the Author dedicates this Work, and well is he assured, from past, experience, that it will receive from their kindness far more favour than it deserves. W.vldronhyr.st, C ?.OYDON, January, 1851. CONTENTS. PAGE. Introduction 5 Chapter I. — The History of Fertilizers 9 Chapter II. — On Fertilizers in general, and their Mode of Operation 83

Section I

Fertilizers composed of Organic Substances 49 Chapter III. — Farm-yard Manure 49 Chapter IV. — Night Soil '..'.'.'. 114 Chapter V. — Animal Substances : Fish, Bones, kc '.'. 132 Chapter VI. — Green Manures 286 Chapter VII. — Liquid Manure 199 Chapter VIII. — Irrigation 243

Section II

Chapter IX. — The Earthy Manures , 055 Chapter X. — Mixtures of Soils. . ...'.'.'.'.'..'.'.'. 277 Chapter XI.— Chalk, Limestone, Marl, kc. ... . . .' .' .' .'.".'..'.' 285 Chapter XII. — Ashes '......'.'. 315 Chapter XIII.— The Refuse of certain Manufactories' .... '. '. '. .' ..'' 339

Section III

Saline Manures — Their Properties or. Chapter XIV.— Saltpetre '.'..'.'.'. 354 Chapter XV.— Sea-weed, Kelp, Soda, Barilla,' ke.".'."'.''" " sfifi Chapter XVI.— Common Salt '.. ££ Chaptev XVII.— Salt with ouier Manures ,L Chapter XVIII —Gypsum £" Chapter XIX.— Guano .'.".'..'.'.'.' 300 Chapter XX.— The Manures adapted for diffcrciiVsolls 417 Chapter XXI.-The Economy of Manuring : Top-dressings,' i'c'.' ".'. 444 Chapter XXII.— On the Adulteration of Manures 4^

Introduction

. A considerable portion of the following work has, in detached essays, already appeared in the recent volumes of the Farmers' Magazine, the Bell's Weekly Messenger, the British Farmer's Magazine, and in the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture. The favour with which they have heen received by the farmers of England in these valuable periodicals has induced their re-publication in a combined and enlarged form. On the importance of the research it is needless to dwell; for all improvements in the application of fertilizers not only afford additional supplies of work, and increased remuneration to the labourers, and capital employed in agriculture, but they add to the permanent national riches. I will, therefore, instead of attempting to prove what no cultivator will dispute, merely add in this introduction, a few leading cases which have been determined in the courts of law with regard to manures.

In most farm leases there are covenants introduced with regard to fertilizers, which are often worse than useless ; encumbering the efforts of the skilful cultivator, and rarely improving the practice of the igno rant, lazy, and unprincipled. Thus, by some leases, the farmer is allowed to sell his straw and hay on certain conditions, such as bringing on to the farm in its stead a given weight of manure ;* in others, he is restrained from selling either ; in others, from liming or chalking his soil. In most leases he covenants to spread the manure on his farm, and to leave it in the concluding * Commonly two tons of stable dung for a load of straw, and three tons for a load of hay.

INTRODUCTION.

. year of his term, properly laid up in heaps, if it is not already employed on the land. The mere relation of landlord and tenant is a sufficient consideration for the tenant's promise to manage a farm in a husbandlike manner, and not to carry away any straw, dung, compost, &c. ; Bowley v. Walker (1793), 5 T. 11. 373; but to promise to spend £60 worth of manure every year is not in law an obligation arising out of the bare relation of landlord and tenant ; Brown v. Crump (1815), 1 Marsh, 567. A tenant from year to year, under a notice to quit, cannot remove manure, except according to the custom of the country, and if necessary he may be restrained by an injunction; Onslow v. (1809), 16 Vessey, jun., 173. The custom of the country is usually followed with regard to the management and sale of manure; but in case there is a written agreement, no inquiry can be made as to the custom of the country; Liebenroodv.

Vines (1815), 1 Merivale, 15 ; and when an express stipula tion is made, the custom of the country is excluded entirely ; Roberts v. Barker (1833), 1 C. and M. 808. In this case Lord Lyndhurst said, "The offgoing tenant was bound, by the custom of the country, to leave the manure on the premises, and was entitled to be paid for it by the landlord or succeeding tenant : but in this case, they did not rely on the custom. The lease contained a covenant, that the tenant on quitting the farm should not sell or take away the manure which should be in the fold, but should leave it to be ex pended on tlie land by the landlord or his succeeding tenant. It is to be left for their use, and there is no provision as to any payment in respect of it. We are of opinion, therefore, that the plaintiff is not entitled to be paid for the manure."

But where an agreement is silent as to the question of manures, then the custom of the country is valid in law ; Senior v. Army taye (1816), Holt, 197. If the out-going tenant has covenanted with his landlord to sell the manure to the in-coming tenant at a valuation, and to leave it on the farm, the out-going tenant has a right of on-stand on the farm ; and if the in-coming tenant remove the

INTRODUCTION.

. 7 manure before such valuation, he is answerable to the out-going tenant in an action of trespass ; Beaty v. Gibbons (1812), 16 East, 116. And a tenant may sell or assign over manure to an assignee, although he thereby subjects himself to an action of covenant; Burbago v. King (1813), 2 Chitty, 246. And it is a reasonable custom for the landlord to pay the out going tenant the expense of manuring ; Dalby v. Hirst, (1819), 3 Moore, 536. If a tenant during his tenancy removes a dunghill, and at the same time digs into and removes virgin soil that is beneath it, his landlord may maintain either trespass, de bonis asportatis, or trover, for the removal of the virgin soil ; Higgon v. Mortimer, (1834), 6 C. and P. 616. But if a tenant covenants to sufficiently muck and manure with two sufficient sets of muck within the last six years of his tenancy, the last mucking to be within the last three years, this cove nant is satisfied by the tenant laying on two sets of muck within the last three years of his term, if he shall think fit to do so ; Poumall v. Moores (1822), 5 _5. aud -1. 416, All fertilizers are free from toll at turnpike gates; Rexv.

Adams, 6 As and S. 52; and even carts, going empty to fetch it, are equally exempt ; Harrison v. James (1787), 2 Chitty, 547; see 52 Geo. III., c. 145 s. 1, and 53 Geo. III., c. 82, s. 2; but this exemp tion does not extend to lime ; King v. Gough (1773), 2 Chitty, 655 ; and even uncrushed bones, passing through a turnpike to be crushed for manure, are exempt from toll, under the 3rd Geo. IV., c. 126, s. 32, and 5 and 6 Wil. IV., c. 18, s. 1 ; Pratt v. Brown (1838), C. and P. 224 ; and it makes no difference if, in a waggon loaded with manure, there is also an empty basket or an empty bottle or two, neither does this render the waggon liable to be weighed, under the 13th Geo. III., c. 84, or 14th Geo. III., c. 82 ; Chamber v. Eaves (1810), 2 Campbell, 393. In valuing manure to an in-coming tenant, much depends upon the custom of the country, which is usually followed in these cases. Land which has been rendered perfectly clean by a year's fallowing is denominated a full tillage, and by tillages the valuation

INTRODUCTION.

. is commonly made. In estimating the value of manure in arable land, it is done by allowing a full tillage after a fallow or crop of turnips fed off ; after a white crop, half a tillage ; but after two white crops no allowance is made. For bones, one tillage more is valued than for dung on arable soils ; two-thirds of the value of the bones and labour of procuring and spreading them being allowed after one white crop, and one-third of the value after two white crops. Soot, rape-cake, oil, sprats, &c, which are quickly exhausted in the soil, are allowed for as one full tillage before crop grown, or after turnips, &c, eaten off; but if the turnips, &c, have been carried off, then only one-third of the cost of procuring, carrying, and spreading is allowed. For earthy manures more is allowed in a valuation than for those of a perishable nature.

Thus, on pas ture land, lime, chalk, or marl, are commonly valued for six years after they have been spread on the land. This includes prime cost, carriage, and labour in spreading in full, when lajd on not more than a year; two-thirds of the value if spread within two years ; one-half in three years ; one-fourth in four years ; and one-sixth in five years : but when lime is used on arable lands, it is commonly valued in the same way as farm-yard manure. When compost is in the heap, it is usually valued in cubic yards,* the value of which necessarily varies ; it may be estimated, however, commonly as of the same value as half a bushel of wheat. f The custom of the in-coming tenant paying for the dung varies in different counties. In the following counties he usually pays for all the dung on the farm ; viz., Essex, Kent, Northumberland (Nottingham, artificial manure), South Kutland, Stafford, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Westmoreland, the West Riding of York.

In the other English counties the dung is commonly left free of charge to the in-coming tenant. This, in Scot land, is called holding in steel-bow. * For the weight of a cubic yard see page 108. t Woodfall, by Harrison, p. 529 ; Bayldon on Rents ; Grainger and Kennedy on Tillage. OH THE FERTILIZERS.

Chapter I. The History Of Manures

The application of manures became one of the sustaining arts of life, as soon as man was ordained to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. Iu the Garden of Eden, whose fertile soil and genial clime appear to have combined in maturing a continued variety and unfailing succession of vegetable sub stances, agricultural operations were unknown ; for that which came spontaneously to perfection required no assistance from human ingenuity ; and where there is no deficiency there can be no inducement to strive for improvement. That period of perfection was but transitory, and the Deity that had placed man in the garden, " to dress and keep it," eventually drove him thence "to till the earth from whence he was taken." From that time to the present the art of manuring the soil has been steadily improving ; and there is no doubt but that it will go on advancing as long as the earth's tenants continue to. increase.

Man, in his greatest state of ignorance, is always found dependent for subsistence upon the produce of the chase, but as population increases recourse must be had to other sources of food, aud we find in the shepherd's life of the early ages the very first agricultural step in the domestication of animals, which it was found more convenient to have constantly at hand, rather than to have to seek them at the very time they were required. As the increase of population still went on, and the flocks and herds had to be proportionately enlarged, one favourite spot would be found too small for the subsistence of the whole ; and, as in the case of Abraham and Lot, they would have to separate and find pasturage in different districts. This separation into tribes could not proceed beyond a certain extent ; and when the land was fully occupied recourse would of necessity be had to means of increasing the produce of given surfaces of soil, instead of enlarging their extent.

Hence originated the first employment of manures. With Abraham and Isaac, it is very evident that wheat, and the other fruits of the earth, were the rare and choice things of their country ; but when such nations once learned, as they might from the example of Egypt, the resource that such products were in periods of famine, arising from mortalities among their cattle, they would soon pursue their interests by cultivating them. This completed, the acquirement of property in land, for the space not only long occupied, but upon which the occupier had bestowed his labour, built his habitation, and had enclosed from injury by vagrant animals, would be generally acknow ledged to be his, without any one stopping to inquire what right he had to make the enclosure. When once thus located, experience and observation would soon teach the employment of manures, irrigation, times of sowing, and other necessary operations; and every generation would be wiser in the art than that which preceded it.

This natural course of events has evidently occurred in these more northern climes, where art and industry have to compensate for a deficiency of natural advantages. "Enlarging numbers, "observes Mr. Sharon Turner, " only magnify the effect, for mankind seem to thrive and civilize in proportion as they multiply, and, by a recurrent action to multiply again in proportion as they civilize and pros per. " In this manner, improved modes of cultivation, the introduction of new species, and of more fruitful varieties of ag*ricultural produce, have universally kept pace with an in creasing population. This, resting upon a basis of facts, vin dicates the wisdom of Providence, and refutes Mr. Malthus's theory of over-production. The agricultural produceof this country has gradually increased, from the insignificant amount that was its value in the time of the Roman invasion, to the enormous annual return of .£200,000,000 ; and it is very certain that in this country, and much more in other parts of the world, the produce is a mere fraction of what the soil is capable of returning.* * " No society, well governed, has been known to outgrow, or tend to outgrow, its means of subsistence.

When, in our own country, one ot* the most populous in the world, we see how far the earth is yet from producing all that labour well directed can bring forth, when we look at the tracts lying waste or half cultivated, we must see how little it is to be Agriculture is the art of obtaining from the earth food for the sustenance of man and his domestic animals ; and the perfection of the art is to obtain the greatest possible produce, at the smallest possible expense. Upon the importance of the art, it is needless, therefore, to insist ; for by it every country is enabled to support in comfort an abundant population. On this its strength as a nation depends ; and by it its indepen dence is secured. An agricultural country has within itself feared as a possible evil, that our population will ever increase beyond the means of supplying itself with food.

We have only to look to what minute care can effect in multiplying the produce of the earth, to feel in what a prodigious ratio it may be multiplied. A piece of heath land the most worthless, converted into a cottager's garden, yields a return of food exceeding that of the richest land of the cultivated fields. Every vegetable that grows, and is consumed, affords new materials for fertilizing the earth, and increasing its productions ; and thus every increase of the number of consumers is a means of calling new food into existence. " The introduction of a single plant from another hemisphere has more than doubled the power of this and of every country in Europe to support their inhabitants. An acre of potatoes will supply food sufficient for the support, in healthful existence, of a family of six human beings, for one year ; a square mile of land producing potatoes, therefore, will support 3840 persons for the same time.

But the produce of the potato is ut. nothing to the banana and other plants of the tropical regions. Nor does the produce of the potato in our fields show the full power of the earth to produce food. By the minute cares of the gardener, successive crops of vegetables may be produced from the same surface, and in the same season. Our present knowledge of agriculture shows us, that throughout the whole kingdom, the productions of the earth may be prodigiously multiplied ; but what our present knowledge of this art is, in comparison with what it may become, we know not. What other plants are yet to be applied to the support of animal life, what other means of fertilizing the earth are yet to be discovered, what other application of mechanical power may yet take place in aid of human labour, we know not ; nor need we, with relation to our present subject, be too curious in inquiring.

It suffices that, with our present means and know ledge, limited as they are, we can multiply our means of subsistence in a degree to furnish food for increasing numbers for more generations of men than the cares of the living race need extend to. '• And if such be the case with a long peopled country, what must we think of the fear that the entire world will be over-peopled ? The richest regions of the globe have yet been scarcely trodden by the foot of the hunter; a great part of Europe is still a desert; and a long desolation has overspread lands that once were the seats of nations, and which only demand security that they may be blessed with abundance again. Such :i* _____ Minor, Syria, and Greece, and such the long desolated shores of Northern Africa. It is not Nature that is barren of her gifts, but it is man that has abused them all ; and it is from his mismanagement alone that in the climates and the lands where we might look for the verdure of an eternal spring, we find only the moving mountains of sand and interminable tracts of the desert (Quart.

Journ. of Agriculture, vol. iii. p. 117). the necessaries and comforts of life ; and to defend these there will never be wanting a host of patriot soldiers. Of the pleasure attending the judicious cultivation of the soil, we have the evidence of facts. The villa farms, sprinkled throughout our happy land, the establishments of Holkham, Woburn, he, would never have been formed if tho occupation connected with them was not delightful. We have an unex ceptionable witness to the same fact in Mr. Roscoe, the elegant, talented author of the lives of Lorenzo de Medici, and of Leo the Tenth. Mr. Roscoe was the son of an extensive potato grower near Liverpool. In the cultivation of that, and other farm produce, he had been an active labourer ; and he who thus had enjoyed the delights that spring from literary pur suits, and from the cultivation of the soil, has left this recorded opinion, " If I was asked whom I consider to be the happiest of the human race, I should answer, those who cultivate the earth by their own hands."* The first manure used by man, as soon as lie began to dwell in fixed habitations, and till the land around him, would of course be that of his domesticated animals ; but he is naturally averse to labour, and consequently this operation would be postponed until the rich alluvial soils, which would be certainly the first selected, were exhausted by over-cropping, and by the increase of population the poorer descriptions forced into cultivation.

The occupier of the land would naturally avoid the trouble of spreading the dung of his farm-yards on to his fields. Instances of this kind have not been wanting in recent periods in the newly settled rich prairies of America, in which many cases have occurred where, in consequence of the enormous accumulation of dung around the farmer's sheds he has been induced to remove his buildings to a new spot, rather than undertake the greater labour of removing the masses of fermenting manure, which so deeply encum bered his old farm-yard. The first rude mode in which it was conveyed to the land was naturally by hand-baskets, or by sledges or barrows : the use of beasts of burthen was necessarily a later agricultural improvement ; and, at first, * Roscoe was one of the first who made the attempt to bring into cultivation a portion of tho extensive Bog, Chat Moss, in Lancashire, now to a considerable extent rendered productive by the application of copious top-dressings with earthy manures.

The mode of reclaiming the Peat soils of Lincolnshire is described by Mr. Pusey (Jour. Rou. Ag. Soc. vol. ii. p. 400). Mr. Morton observes, " The Fens of Lincoln shire have been increased in productiveness at least 100 per cent, merely by applying to the surface of the Peat the clay which is found at depths varying from two to five feet below it" (laid. p. 407). there is no doubt but that manure was carried on their backs to the fields, as is even now practised in the mountainous districts of the Continent, and in some parts of the north of England, and in Devonshire. Dung-carts were a much later improvement, and the preparation of compost heaps, and ex citing and regulating their fermentation by the use of the fork, has been a much more modern discovery than is usually believed. The first hints which nature would furnish to man, with re gard to manures, would be derived from the great luxuriance of the grass growing on the places where the dung of domestic animals had been dropped.

The rank growth of the grass tenanting the margins of streams would indicate the value of water. The use of burnt clay, and of wood ashes, would be suggested by the richness of growth which marks the former site of a fire. Claying and marling chance probably discovered, or perhaps would naturally suggest itself to the farmer of light soils, from their promised power of " giving a body to a soil." The use of the calcareous Suffolk craig is attributed to the luxuriance produced by the accidental upsetting upon a field of a cart loaded with this manure, till then used merely for gar den walks (see post, p. 10). The husbandman, at length, then began to imitate these pro cesses of nature. Our Saxon forefathers, it appears, were, from a very early period, celebrated for their use of marl on the gravels of the south of England (marl is a mixture of clay, chalk, and sand).

The farmers of the west, in the days of our Norman kings, spread calcareous sand over the clays of Corn wall and Devonshire, just as they do at the present time. And in many portions of England there are rich luxuriant meads, restinc upon peat, whose surface-soil has evidently, at some distant period, been formed by a mixture of earths brought from a distance. Mr. Pusey (Jour. Roy. Agri. Soc, vol. iii. p. 180) has very clearly sketched the objects and expense of the system of per manently improviug poor soils, by improved drainage and by earthy mixtures ; and his remarks are so very practical that they can hardly be too generally diffused. After having stated the advantages which can be derived by heavy soils from the more extensive use of drain tiles, and other modes of improved cultivation (and to such soils copious dressings with sand, ehalk, or even burnt clay, are permanent fertilizers), he adds — " Hitherto we have considered only one defect of land — too great cohesiveness and consequent retention of too much mois ture.

There is an opposite fault, however, well known to far- THE niSTORY OF MANURES. niers — too great looseness. This fault may be seen on tracts absolutely barren, as on Bagshot Heath, or on fields under culture, which are termed blowing sands ; because the surfacesand drifts in high winds. In different degrees it is a common fault in land, and shows itself by thinness of the corn crop, shortness of the straw and of tho car. Formerly, indeed, rye was grown on such land instead of wheat. Folding with sheep, pressing, and shallow ploughing, diminish the evil, but do not remedy it. The practice of our ancestors was to cover such land with marl, which is usually a strong clay, containing a great deal of lime. Marl was said indeed to benefit the land at first, but to injure it afterwards ; to be "good for the father, but bad for the son."

This injury, however, I believe, arose from improvidence. Marl was found to act without dung at first, and the fields which had been marled were, consequently, tilled without dung until their soil was completely exhausted. It fell into disrepute, and many farmers are perhaps not aware that it is still used largety in England. I have been surprised to find in the successive numbers of our journal how often it gs mentioned casually by the members of our society. To take first the most striking example — the improvement of the late Lord Leicester's property, as described by Lord Spencer (Journal, vol. iii. p. 1). I doubt if that lamented nobleman, with all his enterprize, could have fed oxen where rabbits had previously browned, as was his just boast, unless those sandy commons had first been made solid with marl.

It is used also largely in Bedfordshire, on a yellow sand about Woburn (Joxirnal. vol. iii. p. 233). The practice is general, I believe, in Norfolk, and also in Suffolk. It is mentioned by Mr. Dug dale as existing in Warwickshire (Journal, vol. ii. p. 259*). And we have a good account of an entire farm which had been marled, at Sherriff Hutton, in Yorkshire. In this experiment 150 tons per acre were spread at an expense of about 5s. 9d. Marl is commonly applied in Cheshire to light soils, at the rate of 128 cart-loads to the acre. I have also had specimens of marl so used in the New Forest, in Hampshire. The greatest improvement of recent times is the application of clay to peat and peaty sand in Lincolnshire, and the wide district of the * In an experiment of this gentleman with spring wheat on a light gravelly soil, dressed with a coating of marl the previous autumn, th" produce of a quarter of an acre was as follows : — Bush.

Pecks, Soil marled . . . . . . . . 10 2 Ditto and cubic petre, 1 cwt. per acre 13 2 Ditto saltpetre, 1 cwt. per acre .. 10 2_ Fens ; by which, in one instance, as we learn from Mr. Win gate (Journal, vol. ii. p. 408), on-land which had been almost worthless, two white crops had been grown every three years, one of them wheat, yielding 40 bushels per acre. An unex ampled rotation, not used, however, when the land was fresh but continued for eighteen years. This improvement, which equals anything that has been done in Flanders, is another in stance of the same principle. " The substance applied sometimes is called marl, sometimes clay. Of the specimens I have received, even those which were called clay have generally turned out to be marl, for they con tained carbonate of lime, or chalk, which constitutes the dis tinction.

The difference, however, is important, because mar! is a much rarer substance than clay ; and if lime be an indis pensable ingredient of clay fit for manure, many districts of England must be cut off from this source of improvement. 1 am inclined, however, to hope that it is not indispensable. One specimen of the Lincolnshire clay which I examined was certainly not a marl. Again, the Flemings, as Mr. Rham informs us (Oxitlines of Fhmish Husbandry), have converted their sandy desert into one of the most fertile districts of Europe. by bringing up, year after year, two inches of subsoil from trenches shifted each year until they reached a depth of two feet. Their sands, I believe, rest often upon a yellow clay, and their fields have in some places the singular appearance of light sand on the surface, while water is standing in the ditches two feet below.

I do not think that the clay of the Netherlands contains much lime. I have met with an instance of a strong clay without lime in Suffolk, which had been applied to a poor, light, calcareous soil, and paid itself the first year in the clover crop (Essay by Captain Alexander). Near Reading, too, the same effect has been produced by the clay dug out from the railway, on a thin, burning gravel : that clay is certainly not a marl. We have also a striking account (Journal, vol. iii. p. 161 ; see post 310) of the application of blue shale to afield of gravel, on which dung and bones had equally failed to produce uirnips or barley, yet 50 cartloads of this shale brought, on each acre, 40 bushels of barley. Now, shale is clay half hardened into biue slate. I do not know whether there was lime in the shale — probably not ; but here is an answer to a question sometimes asked — Is clay better than dung?