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THE GENESEE FAKMER. 



85 



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 and State ; also, in writing names plain, as by this 

 much perplexity may be avoided to ourselves and 

 subscribers. 



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 er, must be received as early as the 10th of the 

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Inquiries anb '^nswtts. 



I have been greatly profited by reading your valuable 

 paper, and have admired the courtesy and patience with 

 wWoh you have answered the inquiries of those less ad- 

 vanced in the science and art of agriculture than yourselves. 

 Pardon rae for asking a few questions in a time of need : 



Ist. I have a quantity of scraps of leather which a thought- 

 less shoe manufacturer carted into the street IIow can I 

 best decompose them, and to what purpose can I best apply 

 them ? Would ashe^, leached or unleached, assist in the 

 work ? What is the best food for Grape vines, and how 

 should they be planted ? 



2d. I have a considerable quantity of settlings of white 

 lye, or undissolved black salts; in what manner can I apply 

 them to the soil, and to what, in the fruit or vegetable line, 

 will they furnish the best food ? 



8d. I have a large quantity of leached ashes, also of barn- 

 yard manure. — How can I best apply these articles, sepa- 

 rately or mixed ? If I apply the ashes unmixed, shall I 

 leave thom on the surface or plow them in ? 



4th. Have not leached ashes, when applied in considera- 

 ble quantities to a clay soil, a tendency to make it more 

 compact? W. W. W. 



Ist. Unleached ashes, or caustic lime, will great- 

 ly facilitate the decomposition of all animal or 

 vegetable substances, but we doubt the policy of 

 using them for this purpose, for these alkalies neu- 

 tralize any acid that may exist or be formed du- 

 ring the fermentation, and the mixture is either 

 neutral or alkaline, so that the ammonia formed 

 from the nitrogenous substances, not being arrest- 

 ed by any fixed acid, passes through the com- 

 pound and is lost. That such is the case you may 

 satisfy yourself by mixing any highly nitrogenous 

 substance, such as guano, blood, fish, or liquid ex- 

 crements, with unloachad ashes or quick lime and 

 ullowiug the mixture to stand a short time in a 

 warm place. Ammoniacal gas will be rapidly 

 evolved, and the well known "hartshorn" be 

 perceptible. In this fact lies the difficulty of de- 

 composing insoluble animal substances without 

 much reducing their intrinsic vftlue; and they 

 must be decomposed before they can serve as food 

 for plants. A compost might be formed by mix- 

 ing the leather, &e., with horse manure and cov- 

 ering the heap with peat or clayey mold. The 



ammonia generated by the horse manure would 

 act on the leather and assist its decomposition, and 

 the peat or loam would do considerable towards 

 retaining the gases. It is possible that the most 

 economical way of using them would be to soak 

 them some time in the liquid of the barnyard and 

 apply them to the soil, where they would gradu- 

 ally decompose and little of their fertilizing prop- 

 erties would be lost, though they would not have 

 so beneficial an effect the first year as if in a more 

 available form. 



2d. If mixed with muck or peat, they will makf 

 a good compost and will be most valuable as a 

 manure for beans. Will do good on a worn out, 

 mossy meadow, or as a manure for potatoes. 



3d. Plow in the manure and spread the ashes 

 on the surface and drag them in. 



4th. Yes ! They do most good on light sandy 

 soils. If you have any light knolls put the leach- 

 ed ashes on them, as a manure for wheat. 



GtiANO AS A Manttee fok Hopb. — I wish to inquire 

 through the pages of the J^anner, of vfhich I have been 

 for years a constant reader and subscriber, your opinion as 

 to the propriety of applying guano to our hop fields, in 

 the place of our barnyard manure, as we are in the habit of 

 using the contents of the barnyards yearly on the hop fields, 

 which practice makes rather a severe tax upon the resour- 

 ces of the farm and if persisted in cannot fail to impoverish 

 our land. Unless some other and better system than the 

 one now employed, can be adopted by hop growers, I 

 think every sensible man will have to abandon the business, 

 which we don't like to do as long as hops are worth 30 to 

 25 cts. per pound, and 600 to SCO lbs. can be produced to 

 the acre. Any information respecting the above inquiry 

 will be thankfully receieved. James L. Yeomans. — Part- 

 landville, N. Y., 1852. 



Guano is used to a great extent in England as 

 a manure for hops. The immediate effect of its 

 application is very beneficial, though it is not so 

 lasting as rich barnyard manure. Woolen rags, 

 refuse leather from tanneries, horn shavings, blood, 

 fish, hair, and other animal substances, have all 

 been found by experience very valuable as a ma- 

 nure for hops, and in fact for all crops. The 

 secret of their great benefit lies in the fact that 

 they contain some 17 per cent, of nitrogen in dry 

 matter, which, by decomposition in the soil or the 

 compost heap, forms, by unitiug with hydrogen, 

 the most needed of all fertilizers and chemico-agri- 

 cultural agents — ammonia. 



The great value of guano consists in the high 

 per centage of ammonia it contains in a soluble 

 and readily available form ; in addition to this, it 

 contains, comparatively, a large amount of phoe- 

 phoric acid, the inorganic substance of which our 

 soils are naturally most deficient, and of which 

 crops most commouly cultivated remove the great- 

 est quantity from the farm. 



Hops are gross feeders and need high and 

 icpeated manuring, or the soil will be soon ex- 



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