MANURES 



Animal 



MANURES AND FERTILISERS 



Water and 

 Manure. 



Animal 

 Manures. 



Farm-yard. 



Fuel Supplies. 



Cattle Urine. 



Nitric Acid. 



Night-soil. 



Disposal. 



Shallow 

 Trenching. 



Voelcker (Improv. Ind. Agri., 131) has very properly said : "Whilst 

 a few soils, such as those of silt-renewed tracts, the black cotton-soil, and 

 newly reclaimed or virgin land, may not require manure, it may be said 

 of the greater part of India that the necessity for using manure is enor- 

 mous, and the supply of it is notoriously inadequate. Water and manure 

 are interdependent, and, just as the former has been, and is still being 

 provided for, so must attention be given to the supply of manure. These 

 two factors, water and manure, constitute the raiyafs great needs, and in 

 their supply consists, very largely, the Improvement of Indian Agriculture." 

 In dealing with Manures and Fertilisers it may be convenient to assort 

 them under three main groups, namely Animal, Vegetable and Mineral 

 Manures : 



/. Animal Manures. These may be referred to the following (a) 

 Farm-yard Manure ; (6) Town Refuse and Night-soil (Poudrette) ; (c) 

 Bones ; and (d) Guano. 



Farm-yard Manure. It would be impossible to review here the very large 

 amount of interesting new information that has accumulated during the past 

 decade or so regarding Indian farm-yard manure and its uses. The chief con- 

 tributors in this direction have been Benson, Leather, Lehmann, Mehta and 

 Mollison. Leather, in his Final Report, points to the fact that throughout 

 the greater part of Gujarat, farm-yard manure is extensively utilised as a 

 manure, not as a fuel, and with much skill and intelligence is stored in specially 

 prepared pits. Benson deals with a somewhat similar state of affairs in Coim- 

 batore and Salem. But what is more to the point, the people who do so find 

 no difficulty in growing for themselves, in the form of hedges and otherwise, the 

 fuel that they require for domestic purposes, and thus disprove the oft-affirmed 

 opinion that, having no other fuel, the people of India are driven to burn their 

 manure. In many parts of India even the surplus cow-dung the proportion 

 that is not required for fuel is rarely appreciated to the full extent as manure. 

 It is all too often thrown into waste hollows or on the roadsides or on the bank 

 of the village tank, in most cases becoming a source of danger in place of an 

 advantage. Very rarely indeed is any effort made to preserve and utilise the 

 cattle urine. This is a most unfortunate state of affairs seeing that it has been 

 shown in Europe and America most conclusively that farm-yard manure is, 

 perhaps, the best and certainly the most economical of all manures. It contains 

 all the constituents of plant food ; is a most valuable and convenient source of 

 nitric acid ; its nitrification is most active at the very period of greatest growth ; 

 as a manure it is less liable to be washed out of the soil than most artificial nitro- 

 genous fertilisers ; it permanently enriches the soil ; and acts under all climates, 

 on all soils and with all crops. 



Leather says that Indian experiments show that when an application of 

 6 tons to the acre is given, an increase of 300 to 400 Ib. of wheat may be the 

 result. After ascertaining that such an allowance would not be beyond the 

 capabilities of the cultivator, he adds, " consequently these experiments really 

 illustrate what the value of the cattle manure is in terms of food-grains." More- 

 over he confirms the opinion, advanced originally by Voelcker, that " Indian 

 dung is not poorer than English." [Of. "Leather, Note on Value of Ind. Cattle- 

 dung, in Nagpur Exp. Farm Kept., Annex. F, 1893-4, 1-10 ; Econ. Util. of Cow- 

 dung and Rob. in Bomb., in Ind. For., 1886, xii., 541-5 ; Benson, Care and Manag. 

 Farm Man. in South India, Bull. 1894, No. 31 ; Watt and Mann, The Pests and 

 Blights of the Tea Plant, 130-4 ; Clouston, Cattle Manure, in Agri. Journ. Ind., 

 1907, ii., pt. iii., 261-9.] 



Towa Refuse, Night-soil and Sewage. The question of the disposal of 

 night-soil and its utilisation for manurial purposes is one which has been, 

 of late years, earnestly considered throughout India by all Governments 

 and Municipalities. In large towns night-soil and street refuse are removed at 

 the expense of the local authorities, but the question arises as to its disposal. 

 The most general practice is to trench it into fields and by its means to 

 reclaim waste land. For this purpose, in some cases deep, in others shallow 

 trenches are employed. Leather remarks, " It is at Allahabad Grass Farm 

 that I have found the most perfect methods employed. The night-soil is 



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