62 GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF POULTRY. 



gypsum and one part mineral superphosphate ; and that one 

 part of this should be mixed with three parts of fresh chicken 

 manure. Kept under cover and turned over once or twice, and 

 finally passed through a sieve, this treatment would absorb the 

 surplus moisture, and reduce the whole to a fairly dry and 

 friable condition, in which it should be used at the rate of 8 to 

 10 cwt. per acre. It may also be mixed with soot, or dry 

 earth and burnt ashes, but should not be mixed with lime. 



Hence it will be seen, that a dozen of fowls per acre, with a 

 very little gypsum and phosphate, will give a farmer the 

 greater part of the manure he requires. And Dr. Voelcker 

 specially reports upon the manure as "a much more concen- 

 trated fertiliser than the best descriptions of ordinary farmyard 

 manure, which seldom yields more than J per cent, of ammonia," 

 whilst stored chicken manure by the analysis yields 4J per 

 cent., and even the moist, fresh-dropped sample over 2 per cent. 

 Let it be once understood what heavy money payments may be 

 thus saved on artificial manures,* and the labour of proper 

 superintendence will no longer be grudged to the poultry. 



Thirdly, attention must be given to improvement of the 

 stock in laying properties. It will be seen in Chapter XI. that 

 any property may be developed greatly in a few generations by 

 careful breeding; and it will also be seen why the utmost 



* A practical farmer wrote to the Live Stock Journal as follows on this 

 point : " There is still the most important item to mention so far as 

 farmers are concerned the manure. I have this year fully tested its 

 value hoth for corn and root crops. I dressed a ten-acre field of oats in 

 four two-and-a-half-acre lots, alternately with artificial top-dressing at 9 

 per ton, and poultry manure, in equal quantities, and if there was any 

 difference it was in favour of the poultry manure. The result was ahout 

 the same with swedes and turnips: 8 cwt. of poultry manure proving 

 much better than 6 cwt. of artificial manure, costing per ton 7 10s. 

 This year my artificial manure bill amounts to less than one-third of what 

 it was in 1876, and my thirty acres of swedes and turnips are better than 

 I have had them for years." 



