GENERAL PRACTICE. MANURES. 51 



a waterproof bottom, a layer of loam placed under each heap will absorb much of the 

 escaping liquid. This enriched soil when sweetened forms a superior top-dressing for 

 fruit trees. Manure should always have its strawy portions reduced to a workable 

 state, and though in turning and preparing a ton of farmyard manure it is reduced to 

 15 cwt., 5 cwt. is not necessarily lost, unless through carelessness nitrogen, phosphates, 

 &c., having been allowed to escape. Fresh manure applied to soil has to decay there, 

 instead of in the rot heap, but when it is prepared and applied, healthy trees with roots 

 near the surface obtain the food they want, and benefit accordingly. Enough prepara- 

 tion to ensure the ready spreading and pulverisation of the manure should be afforded, 

 but no more. Soddened masses that " cut like cheese " are sour and cold. More manu- 

 rial matter is run into our streams than is bought at great cost in the form of artificial 

 manures. Twelve to twenty tons of farmyard manure afford a sufficient dressing for one 

 acre of land. In gardens it is applied in no definite quantity, but at the rates named 

 it is equal to about 5| Ibs. and 9| Ibs. respectively per square yard. 



Refuse. The remains of all kinds of garden or field crops should be carefully gathered 

 into a store and rotted down. Weeds and coarse garbage formed into a heap, a bushel 

 of salt and half a bushel of quicklime incorporated with every cartload, in a few months 

 form a mass of decayed compost quite as valuable as stable manure. Lime retains many 

 of the gases evolved during putrefaction, and salt combining with the lime destroys 

 noxious grubs which might form in the mass. A sprinkling of 4 Ibs. of iron sulphate 

 per cartload is useful in destroying fungoid germs and "fixing" ammonia. 



Turfy, leafy clearings of ditches and road-scrapings make an excellent compost. 

 Mixed with one-sixth of quicklime and turned over once or twice in the course of a 

 year, a mellow material is formed for surface dressing orchards or fruit trees in gardens. 

 Twenty to forty cartloads per acre make old orchard trees flourish, and the mixture is 

 not less useful in preparing new ground. 



From manufactories a quantity of rubbish or waste is obtainable. Bags, wool waste, 

 dust from shoddy mills, hoof and leather parings, hair and feathers contain varied amounts 

 of nitrogenous matter, are slow in decomposing, and therefore best mixed with manure or 

 compost for enriching the soil. One to two tons per acre of the lighter kinds are sufficient. 



Applying Manures. There are times to give manure and times to withhold it. Eank 

 manure has to become assimilated as plant food before the roots will have anything to do 

 with it; therefore this and raw, strong liquid manure are best applied in autumn or winter. 

 By spring the nutrient elements will be in an available form for being taken up by the 



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