Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Supplement/Dung-hills

Dung-hills.—The following judicious method of raising dung-hills, is practised in the county of Middlesex: it justly claims the attention of those farmers, who find it necessary to collect dung, for the use of their lands.—First, all the scrapings of roads, the mud of ponds and ditches, and the top-mould from gravel-pits, are spread in the most convenient places, as bottoms for dung-hills. On these strata is carted the whole of the dung, produced on their own farms, together with all that can be procured from the metropolis, and the different inns on the road; to which are sometimes added chalk, ashes, soap-boilers' waste, brick-layers' rubbish, &c.

In this state, the heap remains till within a month of the time for spreading the manure on the land; when the whole is turned, and intimately mixed; the larger clods are then broken into small pieces, while such as may be too dry, are thrown into the middle. Thus treated, the mass unites more perfectly; and the putrefaction will be completed, while the matters continue in a heap. By this mode of forming the basis of dung-hills, the fertilizing liquor (that distils from the dung during the fermentation and heat which necessarily take place) is effectually preserved, and contributes greatly to the amelioration of the soil.