FOREIGN NOTICES. 



45 



tended to now. The matters referred to, are as 



important in other plants as in the vine, though 

 they may not show mismanagement so quickly. 

 Much evil has been done by two classes of phyto- 

 logists contending with each other — one asserting, 

 that it is the swelling of the buds tliat causes the 

 ascent of the sap; the other asserling, that it is 

 the rise of the sap that causes the buds to swell 

 and expand. Before the principles of pruning can 

 be well understood, these contradictions must be 

 harmonised. And they may be perfectly so, for 

 both are right. The expanding of the buds, and 

 the rising of the sap, are each in turns relative 

 and CO- relative cause and consequence to the oth- 

 er. No wonder though wise men smile at us, 

 when from looking at a fact from diflTcrent points 

 of view, we squabble as lustily about it as those 

 clever fellows who were within a little of cudgel- 

 ling each other, because about the chameleon's 

 color they could not agree. R. Fish, in Cottage 

 Gardener. 



Woolen Rags as Manure. — Many of our 

 readers are old enough to remember the ridi- 

 cule with which the proposition to use bone- 

 dust as a manure was received by the cultiva- 

 tors of the soil; and they must have heard, as 

 we often have heard, the contemptuous qucrj-, 

 " What! old knife-handles good for manure?" 

 That ignorant prejudice has passed away; but 

 another equally erroneous may arise in the mind 

 of some of our readers, when they find that 

 WOOLEN rags as a manure are the subject of 

 our piesent observations. We are led to make 

 these by two letters from very diflTerent parts of 

 England; one asking, "Why the Kentish hop- 

 growers turn woolen rags into the soil of their 

 hop-gardens?" and the other, which may serve 

 in part to answer the query, is from Mr. James 

 Derham, of Wrington, near Bristol. He 

 says: 



"What do you think of woolen rags for ma- 

 nure? In the lower part of this county (about 

 Crewkernc) cultivators attach great import- 

 ance to them. There are a great many field- 

 gardens there, and an immense quantity of on- 

 ions are raised in the neighborhood. No one 

 thinks of sowing unless he has dug in woolen 

 shreds. These are collected all over the coun- 

 ty, and sold at so much per ewt. I was round 

 there the other day (March) and saw many 

 wagon-loads of them; and in one or two in- 

 stances I saw them plowing them in for corn 

 {oats?). They tell me they put no manure. be- 

 sides; and if this really is a good thing, how 

 very easy for many persons to accumulate a 

 stock. I have a large heap myself, and should 

 be glad to know your opinion as to the use of 

 them. I have thought if they were first soak- 

 ed for some days in liquid manure, it would im- 

 prove them . Would they not do to apply to fruit 

 trees in that state?" 



Soaking the rags in liquid manure would be 

 a very good mode of apj)lying the latter, and 

 there is no doubt they would do well in combi- 

 nation ; for the litjuid manure would be for the 

 immediate use of the plant, while the rags, be- 

 ing slow in decomposing, would serve it during 

 the after stages of growth. They would do 

 better for fruit trees without being so soaked, 

 for these trees, except when growing in very 

 poor soil, require no stimulating like that af- 

 forded by liquid manure. 



Woolen rags are by themselves, however, a 

 good manure; and the willy dust, and other 

 woolen refuse, so abundant in the great cloth- 

 iery districts of Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and 

 Yorkshire, come within the designation of 

 woolen rags; and as they slowly decompose in 

 the soil, they all give out food highly useful to 

 plants. During decomposition they produce 

 ammonia and other matters soluble in water, 

 every hundred parts being composed, like fea- 

 thers, hair, &c. , of about 50 parts carbon or 

 charcoal, 7 parts hydrogen, 17 [larts nitrogen, 

 24 parts oxygen and sulphur, and 2 parts sa- 

 line matters. These last contain carbonate of 

 potash, muriate of potash, acetate of potash 

 and lime, all of which are salts, or bases of 

 salts, useful to cultivated vegetables. 



We can quote many practical authorities as 

 to the value of woolen rags as a fertilizer. Mr. 

 R. Slack, paper-maker, of Hayfield, Derby- 

 shire, has used them for many years. He finds 

 them good for potatoes; and adds, " for hay 

 grass I have nothing that will produce so good 

 a crop, spread upon the land in January, and 

 raked off in April."* 



Mr. J. M. Paine, writing in 1848, says that 

 he had long been in the habit of using fifty tons 

 yearly, paying for them in London from fifty to 

 eighty shillings per ton; the dearest being 

 those containing the most wool. Before put 

 ting on the land, they are cut into very small 

 pieces, (two inches square being the largest,) 

 and from one ton to half a ton per acre are suf- 

 ficient. He finds them most beneficial to hops 

 and turnips. 



They are not so good when used mixed with 

 lime; for although this decomposes them faster 

 than when they are left to themselves, yet by 

 such treatment the ammonia is driven off, in 

 which their most active power is comprised. 



We believe that the best mode of applying 

 woolen rags to the soil is to mix them previous- 

 ly with the super-phosphate of lime, made from 

 bones. This contains sulphate of lime also, 

 which will fix the ammonia of the rags as they 

 decompose, and the phosphate of lime is a sa- 

 line manure, in which the rags are deficient. 



Mr. Cuthbert Johnson, in his excellent vol- 

 ume on "Fertilizers," says, that "woolen rags 



♦ Our OM'ii experience tells us that woolen rags are raosi 

 useful to potatoes, straivberries, aiui raspberries. 



