672 ANNALS OF

which gives way with some difficulty, and lets no more gass escape than is necessary: the longer the: manure is kept it is the better, till four vears, when it is at perfection; it is taken out in the consistence‘nearly of gelly, and a small portion buried at, the root of every orange tree: the result uncommonly great.

In further confirmation of the effect of animal matter on vegetation, the following instance was adduced. A gentleman hearing of the above fact, and wishing to abridge the term of the preparation, thought that boiling animals to a gelly, might have a similar effect: he boiled several puppies accordingly, and applied the gelly to the roots of a sterile fig tree; the bene- fit was very great, the tree from that time for several years bearing in profusion.

Hints of this kind are well worth preserving, for though an English farmer may neither have the apparatus of the Chinese, nor puppies enow to become an object of attention, yet the reduc- tion of manure to a mucilaginous state, ought perhaps to be carried further than it is; and the degree may be ascertained by experiment.