MANURES. 123 



vantageous way to use them is to compost them with 

 stable manure, or with some other rapidly fermenting 

 substance, which will hasten their decomposition and 

 render them sooner available. 



Rags, hair, etc., thus treated, will in a short time 

 be reduced to such a condition that they may be 

 more immediately used by plants instead of lying in 

 the soil to be slowly taken up. It is better in all 

 cases to have manures act quickly and give an im- 

 mediate return for their cost, than to lie for a long 

 time in the soil before their influence is felt. 



Old leather should not be thrown away. It de- 

 composes very slowly, and consequently is of but 

 little value ; but, if put at the roots of young trees, 

 it will in time produce appreciable effects. 



Tanners' and curr!<:/'x refuse, and all other animal 

 offal, including that of the slaughter-house, are well 

 worth attention, as they contain more or less of those 

 two most important ingredients of manures, nitrogen 

 and phosphate of lime. 



It is unnecessary to add that, in common with all 

 other animal manures, these substances must be either 

 composted, or immediately plowed under the soil. 

 Horn piths, and horn shavings, if decomposed iu com- 

 post with substances which ferment rapidly, make very 

 good manure, and are worth fully the price charged 

 for them. 



ORGANIC MANURES OF VEGETABLE ORIGIN. 



Muck, the most important of the purely vegeta- 

 ble manures, has been already sufficiently described. 



