2G2 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



OX THE VALUE OF WOOLLEN RAGS AS A MANURE. 



Prof. Way, chemist of the Royal Agricultural Society, England, in re- 

 cently investigating the value of woollen rags as a manure, felt that it would 

 hardly be satisfactory to content himself with the analysis of wool, since, as 

 he observes (Jour. Hoyal Ag. Hoc., vol. x. p. 017), to reason from the composi- 

 tion of a raw material of any kind upon that of the manufactured article, 

 which has passed through perhaps half a dozen processes, is often to lay 

 one's self open to much error; and nothing short of the direct analysis of the 

 rags themselves, would enable any person to form a correct notion of their 

 manuring value. Wool, in a state of purity, contains upwards of seventeen 

 per cent, of nitrogen. Were woollen rags, therefore, of the same strength 

 as the wool itself, they should produce ultimately a larger amount of ammo- 

 nia than even Peruvian guano. It will be valuable, then, to examine the 

 chemical compositions of some of the commonly sold refuse woollen rags. 

 These rags are well known, and extensively employed as a manure in some 

 parts of the country. 



Owing, as the Professor remarks, to their slow decomposition in the soil, 

 they are not well fitted for root culture turnips and other plants of this 

 kind requiring active and readily soluble manures to produce a rapid growth. 

 Still, this must not be taken as an undoubted fact, since, in the experiments 

 of the late Mr. Pusey on the growth of beet-root (Ibid., vol. vi., p. 530), when 

 thirteen tons of farm-yard manure per acre produced twenty-seven and a 

 half tons of clean roots, the addition to the dung of seven cwt. of rags raised 

 the produce to thirty -six tons. This increase he attributed to the large pro- 

 portion of azote or nitrogen present in the rags. 



Woollen rags were formerly, as Professor Way adds, to be purchased of 

 good quality, and unmixed with any less valuable substance; but of late 

 years rags, of a size that used to be sold to the farmer, are bought up to be 

 reconverted into an inferior kind of cloth. The supply being in this way in 

 part cut off, is frequently made good by the admixture of such linen or cot- 

 ton rags as may not be worth the paper-maker's attention. 



Three specimens of these refuse rags were examined by the Professor. 

 Specimen No. 1, consisting of the seams and other uselcsss parts of old cloth, 

 which had apparently been cut up to be remanufactured into cloth. Xo. 2, 

 called " premings," and Xo. 3, " cuttings," appeared to be much of the same 

 character, but totally different from the rags, they both consisted essen- 

 tially of colored wool less than an eighth of an inch in length. These all 

 contained, in their ordinary state, a certain proportion of water. In the 

 three specimens above referred to, the 



Per cent. 



Rags contained of water, 7-87 



Premings, 7 



Cuttings, 8-70 



In this state, the proportion per cent, of nitrogen which they contained, 

 and the proportion of ammonia, which, by the decomposition of the animal 

 matter, will be eventually produced from them, and from a specimen of 

 " shoddy," is given in the following little table : 



Nitrogen. Ammonia. 



Rags, 10-47 12-71 



Framings, 9 92 12-05 



Cuttings 11-84 li'31 



Shoddy, 4-55 5'52 



