CH.xi] Leather Waste 201 



used with advantage in hop gardens. The larger quills 

 are more in demand than the small feathers and they 

 contain more nitrogen. 



Rabbit waste consists of the ears, feet, tail, etc., of the 

 rabbit, and so far as the supply goes it is distinctly 

 useful as manure and is improved by properly grinding. 



Leather waste. Boot leather waste has at times been 

 offered to farmers, but it has never been shown to 

 possess manurial value and should not be purchased, 

 nor should it enter into the composition of a mixed 

 manure. Unfortunately finely ground samples contain- 

 ing some 7 per cent, of nitrogen are periodically offered 

 for sale at low prices, and there is reason to believe 

 that they are sometimes used in compound and patent 

 manures to give a high nitrogen content, and an 

 undeserved appearance of richness. This is the more 

 regrettable as leather might probably be made a useful 

 manure by suitable treatment. 



Soft leather scraps obtained from glove factories are in a 

 different category, and find valuable applicationin market 

 gardens in the glove districts of Worcestershire : they are 

 put into the soil with the young sprouts, cabbages, etc., at 

 the same time of setting out and afford a useful root run. 



Dissolved or acidulated leather is prepared by digest- 

 ing scraps of boot and other leather with sulphuric acid 

 of the proper strength at a certain temperature, when 

 the whole mass melts and some at any rate of its 

 nitrogen compounds become soluble. Until recently it 

 was exported to America where it was used as a base 

 for compound fertilisers. French manurial trials have 

 given fairly satisfactory results^. 



I ^ R. Giiillin, Annales Science Agronomique, 1916, xxxni. 337. See 

 also U.S. Deft, of Agric. Bull. No. 158. 



