248 REPOET OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



nitrogeu at 10 cents per pound. If rightly composted the ingredients 

 will become available speedily and surely. For most soils and crops 

 the increased proportion of phosphoric acid which the bone would add 

 would be very advantageous." 



" I am persuaded that my soil wants potash. Should that be put in 

 the compost ; and, if so, what is the cheapest way to get it ?" 



" If you can get fresh ashes cheap they will do very well. If not, 

 the "muriate of potash,' which contains 50 per cent. ' actual potash,' 

 and can be bought in the larger markets at $45 or less \)ev ton, will be 

 best. But tbe ashes have the advantage over the potash-salt that they 

 supply all the ingredients of plant food but nitrogen, and further, by 

 virtue of their large amount of lime and alkalies, they aid the decompo- 

 sition of the matters in the compost very materially. In absence of 

 ashes, lime will serve an excellent purpose." 



Mr. D. explained his proposed method of composting, which con- 

 sisted of mixing muck and mellow earth with the fish, bone, potash- 

 salts, and lime, in alternate layers, in heaps where the urine from the 

 stables would be caught and absorbed. From previous experience he 

 believed that he could secure a moderately rapid fermentation which 

 would keep the heap warm, but not too hot, and after a reasonable time 

 have gone so far as to decompose the fragments of fish and bone and 

 leave the whole heap in a well-rotted and uniform condition. I could 

 only say that this seemed to me an extremely rational, sensible, and 

 profitable way of making manure. And I cannot answer the numerous 

 questions I receive about the best way of composting fish for manure 

 any better than by giving the conversation with Mr. D. substantially 

 as I recall it. 



Improving fish for manure hy feeding it to Steele. 



312. The most rational method of utilizing fish for manure, and the 

 one which it seems to me must prove by far the most profitable way of 

 economizing our waste fish products, is by feeding them to stock. 



European farmers have learned in their practice what science has ex- 

 plained in theory, that just as the most reliable and useful manure is 

 that produced in the stable and barn-yard, so this manure can be vastly 

 improved by foods rich in nitrogen. English, French, and German 

 farmers have found the feeding of oil cake and meal so profitable that 

 manufacturers, entirely unable to meet the demand from the home 

 supply, ransack the markets of Eussia, India, and the United States to 

 obtain it. Our linseed and cotton-seed products are in great demand 

 for foreign export. After our oil manufacturers have pressed out 

 the oil, whose value is well enough understood in the commerical world 

 to keep it at home, the press cake, whose worth our farmers have not 

 yet learned, is sent abroad to enrich the cattle food, manure, and purses 

 of foreign farmers who know what it is good for and how to use it. 



