MANURES AND THEIR MODES OF APPLICATION. 195 



want; but on farm lands away from towns, it is not 

 often that enough can be obtained to have any appre- 

 ciable effect on the soil, and hence artificial fertilizers 

 are resorted to, which often fail, not from any fault in 

 themselves, but from the fact that, exerting little mechani- 

 cal influence on the land, it becomes compacted or sod- 

 den, the air cannot get to the roots, and hence failure or 

 partial failure of crop. 



Thus, we see, that to have the best results from com- 

 mercial fertilizers, it is of great importance to have the 

 land " rested " by a crop of grain or grass every three or 

 four years. 



The best known fertilizers of commerce are Peruvian 

 Guano and Bone Dust, though there are numbers of 

 others, such as Fish Guano, Dry Blood Fertilizer, Blood 

 and Bone Fertilizer, with the various brands of super- 

 phosphates, all of more or less value for fertilizing pur- 

 poses. It is useless to go over the list, and we will 

 confine ourselves to the relative merits of pure Peruvian 

 Guano and pure Bone Dust. Guano, at $65 per ton, we 

 consider relatively equal in value to Bone Dust at $40 

 per ton, for in the lower-priced article we find we have to 

 increase the quantity to produce the same results. What- 

 ever kind of concentrated fertilizer is used, we find it 

 well repays the labor to prepare it in the following .man- 

 ner before it is used on the land: 



To. every bushel of Guano or Bone Dust add three 

 bushels of either leaf mould, (from the woods,) well-pul- 

 verized dry muck, sweepings from a paved street, Stable 

 Manure so rotted as to be like pulverized muck, or, if 

 neither of these can be obtained, any loamy soil will do; 

 but in every case the material to mix the fertilizers with 

 must be fairly dry and never in a condition of mud; the 

 meaning of the operation being, that the material used is 



