9$ THE PRACTICAL POULTRY KEEPER. 



the sand was probably scraped up from the floor of the 

 house. As regards its application, Dr. Voelcker recom- 

 mended that for most farm crops, a mixture should be kept 

 of two parts burnt gypsum and one part mineral super- 

 phosphate j 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. Dr. Voelcker 

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

 trated fertiliser than the best descriptions of ordinary farm- 

 yard manure, which seldom yields more than f per cent, of 

 ammonia," whilst stored chicken manure by the analysis 

 yields 4^ 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. 



* 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 

 both 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 about the same with 

 swedes and turnips : 8 cwt. of poultry manure proving much better than 

 6 cwt. of artificial manure, costing per ton 7 IDS. 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." 



