156 PRACTICAL FARM CHEMISTRY. 



muck lands, we just about throw away $1.50 

 worth of nitrogen, in order to get the use of 

 twenty-five cents' worth of phosphoric acid and 

 fifty-live or sixty cents' worth of potash. The muck 

 needs neither this nitrogen, nor the mechanical ac- 

 tion of the bulky organic manure. Hence, we 

 might use the latter to much better advantage for 

 other purposes, and on soils where all its constitu- 

 ents and good qualities are likely to be utilized and 

 appreciated. 



In wood ashes, either leached or unleached, we 

 have the most serviceable and often the very cheap- 

 est manurial substance for peat and muck soils. If 

 the ashes are leached, their proportion of potash 

 and phosphoric acid is about right for the uses of 

 the crops; if unleached, it may be made right by 

 the addition of superphosphate, Thomas' slag, or 

 other phosphatic manures. Thus, we might mix 

 2,000 pounds of unleached wood ashes and 400 

 pounds of phosphatic guano, or Thomas' slag, or 



bone charcoal, or dissolved bone, or dis- 

 ^Muck°' solved rock, or perhaps bone meal; we 



would have a fertilizer analyzing about 

 4 per cent of potash and 4^ per cent of phos- 

 phoric acid. In grain farming, a greater x^roportion 

 of the phosphatic manures might be preferable; for 

 potatoes and root crops, even a smaller proportion 

 would answer. As a general purpose manure, how- 

 ever, I believe the proportions given are not much 

 out of the way. The question now is, how much of 

 this fertilizer should be aj^plied? This depends on 

 the crop to be grown. For ordinary cereals, a dress- 

 ing of 500 to 800 pounds would undoubtedly give us 

 comparatively large results. The expense of this 

 application will probably range between five and ten 



