USE AND COiMPOSITION OF WOOL. HAIR, AND HORN. 445 



§ 2. Wool, woollen rags, hair, horn, and hones. 



1°. Wool, in the form of the waste of the spinning-mills, and espe- 

 cially in that of woollen rags, acts very efficaciously as a manure. 

 The rags are used with good effect upon light chalks and gravels, in 

 which they retain the water. They are sometimes ploughed in for 

 wheat along with the clover stubble, in the winter with the corn stub- 

 ble, when the land is intended for turnips, and are sometimes applied 

 as a top dressing to clover and grass lands (British Husbandry, I., p. 

 425.) They are used most extensively, however, in the hop-grounds, 

 being dug in round the roots, to which they continue for a long time to 

 supply much nourishment. The estimation in which they are held may 

 be judged of by the price they bring, which is from £5 to £10 a ton. 



2°. Hair also is fitted to produce effects similar to those which fol- 

 low the use of wool. It can seldom, however, be obtained by the 

 farmer at so economical a rate as to enable him to trust to it as an 

 available resource when other manures become scarce. 



3=". Horn, in the form of horn shavings, parings, and turnings, is just- 

 ly considered as a very powerful manure. Even in the state of shav- 

 ings, however, it undergoes decay still more slowly than woollen rags ; 

 and, therefore, like them, will always be most safely and economically 

 employed when previously rotted, by being made into a compost. 



Wool, hair, and horn, differ from flesh, blood, and skin, by contain- 

 ing very much less water in their natural state, and by undergoing, 

 in consequence, a much slower decay, and exhibiting a much less 

 immediate action upon any crop to which they may be applied. The 

 intelligent farmer, therefore, will bear this important distinction in 

 mind, in any opinion he may form as to the relative efficacy of these 

 several substances as general fertilizers of the land. 



In chemical composition, these three substances are nearly identi- 

 cal, and they do not differ widely from the lean of beef or from dried 

 blood. When burned they leave only a small quantity of ash • — 



Wool leaves. ....... 2-0 per cent, of ash. 



Hair 0-72 " " 



Horn 0-7 « « 



And the part which burns away — the organic part — consists of— 



Wool. Hair, Horn. 



Carbon 50-65 51-53 51-99 



Hydrogen 7-03 6-69 6-72 



Nitrogen 17-71 17-94 17-28 



Oxygen and Sulphur 24-61 23-84 24-01 



100 100 100 



The organic part of these three substances, therefore, is nearly 

 identical in composition, and hence, when equally decomposed, they 

 ought to produce the same effects upon the young crops. They con- 

 tain a little more nitrogen than dried flesh and blood, and a little less 

 than dried slcin, and therefore in so far as their fertilizing action de- 

 pends upon this element, they ought to occupy an intermediate place 

 between these several substances. 



