The Manure ^lestlon. 73 



ing more highly-cultivated products, the demand for fertilizers may be 

 expected to increase. 



We have briefly traced the disposition made of the refuse of the 

 products of the ground ; but it will be seen that only a small part of it 

 goes where every particle of it ought to go, viz., back to the land from 

 which it was taken. And we have done this for the purpose of impress- 

 ing on the minds of our readers the duty of sacredly returning to the 

 earth all the refuse of their houses and grounds, as well as of their sta- 

 bles and barns. If this were done, there is no doubt that, with the 

 absorption by the soil of plant-food from the air, the land would contin- 

 ually increase in fertility, instead of decreasing. As one means of econ- 

 omizing valuable fertilizers, the earth-closet, which is but the application 

 of a principle known as long ago as the time of Moses, is an immense 

 improvement over the plan of washing them into streams and docks, 

 which does but remove a nuisance one step from us, to be encountered 

 again at the next. 



Besides the carefvil husbanding of all animal and vegetable refuse mat- 

 ter, the judicious use of phosphates and other mineral manures is capable 

 of supplying the want of barn and stable manure. On this point we 

 would refer to an address delivered at the Farmers' Meeting, under the 

 auspices of the State Board of Agriculture, at Framingham, Massachu- 

 setts, by Dr. James R. Nichols, who, in the last seven years, has entirely 

 renovated a worn-out farm in Haverhill by the use of phosphates, ashes, 

 fish pomace, guano, potash, lime, sulphate of magnesia, nitrate of soda, 

 and other salts. To obviate one of the greatest difliiculties in the way 

 of using these substances, viz., their adulteration, — even wood ashes 

 having been mixed with fifty per cent, of coal ashes, — Dr. Nichols 

 Jecommends that farmers should associate themselves together as the 

 firmers of England do, and manufacture their own fertilizers. At any 

 rste, it is impossible to use too much care in purchasing, to avoid buying 

 an article worth only half what is asked for it, if indeed not absolutely 

 wathless. 



Another suggestion that we would make is, that when guano, or 

 any other fertilizer that has been used with good effect, ceases to be 

 beneficial, it should not lead to the condemnation of all specific ma- 

 nures, but. should be taken as the indication that some change is neces- 

 sary, and the physical and chemical characteristics of the soil should' 

 be sttdied, to detei'mine what other substance or combination will be 

 most effective. A rotation of manure is as beneficial as a rotation of 

 crops. Even stable manure becomes partly or wholly ineffectual when 

 used as the sole fertilizer for a series of years, and a great gain has been 



