434 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



Effects of commercial fertilizers in cold soils. — A correspondent in 

 Milioa CouDtj', Northern Georgia, represents that by the use of com- 

 mercial fertilizers that county has been rendered as productive in cotton 

 as the southern portion of the State. It is an elevated region, situated 

 on a spur of the Bkie Ridge which divides the Mississippi and the 

 Atlantic slope, and the soil is a cold red loam or rotten clay. The stimu- 

 lating fertilizer gives the cotton-plant an early start, and the weather is 

 seldom, if ever, hot enough to cause it to wither or rust. 



Use of Jcainit. — Professor Voelcker remarks that kainit is more likely 

 to be remunerative on sand}- an<l gravelly than on clayey soils, and 

 especially for roots, clover, and other leguminous crops, and potatoes. 

 For the latter, designed for market, it may also be of use on heavier 

 soils. In moderate applications it may be beneficial to grass land which 

 does not receive suiScient dung, and which is annually cropped in hay, 

 with the aid of such nitrogenous manures as ammonia salts or nitrate 

 of soda. But he does not anticipate much benefit from a general use of 

 kainit in agriculture. 



Management of stahle-mannre. — In a recent prize essay before the Illi- 

 nois Agricultural Society, the following method is given for keeping 

 stable-manure in the best condition : In dry weather two men and a 

 team are employed to fill a large bin in the stable with pulverized clay, 

 road-dust, or common soil. With this the floor of each stall is covered 

 three inches deep, and on this layer is placed the litter, thus giving op- 

 portunity for a complete absorption of urine. This bin filled in one day 

 with dried and pulverized earth sufficed for ten head of cattle during 

 the stabling season. Dried clay was also used for the pig-pen and hen- 

 roosts. To save manure from fire-fang it was covered with soil one inch 

 deep. Water was occasionally applied to stop fermentation. 



Htiano manure. — A British inventor, Mr. Hughan, has brought for- 

 ward a new fertilizer, termed Huano manure, which is formed by a com- 

 bination of night-soil with phosphates. Sulphuric acid is used as in the 

 manufacture of common superphosphate. The night-soil serves in the 

 place of water to reduce the phosphates into the proper pasty condition 

 for the action of the acid, which is then applied, and sulphate of lime ' 

 or plaster of Paris is formed, and solidification and deodorizatiou of the 

 whole mass takes place. 



Utilization of night-soil. — Mr. Lepmann, director of the Central Trial 

 Station iu Bavaria, estimates the annual value for fertilizing purposes 

 of the human excrement annually wasted in the city of Munich, contain- 

 ing 177,600 inhabitants, at about $500,000. He states that Germany 

 now possesses a system, called there the Tonnen or barrel system, by 

 which he is confident that this enormous waste may be entirely pre- 

 vented. The city ot Gratz, containing 80,000 inhabitants, has this sys- 

 tem in use in every house, and has thus demonstrated the practicability 

 of using it in large cities. As an illustration of the profit to be derived 

 from human excrement when fairly tested as a fertilizer, Mr. Lepmann 

 refers to the fact that between the years 1850 and 18G4 the price of that 

 obtained from the barracks increased forty-five fold. 



Use of night-soil. — A farmer of Brunswick, Maiue, lately stated that 

 there was but one man in the town who had acquired wealth by farming 

 alone, and that the latter had accomplished this by using large quanti- 

 ties of night-soil on his grass-land and cabbage-field. 



Use of fert'ilizers in Connecticut. — In the vicinity ot Westport, South- 

 western Connecticut, on the shore of Long Island Sound, there were used 

 fertilizers to the following amounts and value iu 1871, per estimate of 

 Mr. T. B. Wakeman, of that place : 00,000 bushels of ashes, at 25 cents 



