FERTILIZERS. Tt 



laundry can find its way to them and be absorbed for the benefit of the crops. 

 In this way several loads of manure, suitable for the support and suste- 

 nance of any crop, may be made at comparatively small expense. The 

 highly putrescent character of this fermentable liquid qualifies it admirably 

 for the irrigation of compost heaps of whatever material composed. Being a 

 potent fertilizer, it must of course impart additional richness to almost any 

 material to which it may be added. Try it, and mark the result. 



Manure for Almost Xotliiiig. — If you have any dead animal — say, for 

 instance, the body of a dead horse — do not suffer it to pollute the atmos- 

 phere by drawing it away to the woods or any other otU-of-the-way place, 

 but remove it a short distance only from your premises, and put down four 

 or five loads of muck or sods, jjlace the carcass thereon, and sprinkle it over 

 with quicklime, and cover over immediately with sods or mold sufiicient to 

 make, >rith what had been previously added, twenty good wagonloads, and 

 you will have within twelve months a pile of manure worth twenty dollars for 

 any crop you choose to put it upon. Use a proportionate quantity of mold 

 for smaller animals, but never less than twenty good wagon-loads for a 

 horse; and if any dogs manifest too great a regard for the enclosed carcasB, 

 shoot them on the spot. 



Poultry Manure. — Fifty fowls will make, in their roosting house alone, 

 • u cwt. per annum of the best manure in the world. Hence fifty fowls ■will 

 make more than enough manure for an acre of land, seven cwt. of guano be- 

 ing the usual quantity apphed per acre, and poultry manure being even 

 richer than guano in ammonia and fertilizing salts. Iso other stock ■will 

 give an equal return in this way; and these figures demand careful atten- 

 tention from the large farmer. The manure, before using, should be mixed 

 with twice its bulk of earth, and then allowed to stand in a heap, covered 

 with a few inches of earth, till decomposed throughout, when it makes the 

 very best manure which can be had. 



An Experiment ^irttb Ashes.— -An exf>eriment made ■with five wagon 

 loads of coal ashes on twenty square rods of ground may be cited as an in- 

 stance of beneficial mechanical efi'ects. The amount of ashes was about two 

 hrmdred bushels, that is to say, ten bushels to the rod. They were drawn 

 on late in the fall, the ground having been recently plowed. In the spring, 

 the ground was plowed again, thus mixing the ashes with the soil. It was 

 then planted ^vith garden stufis. All the plants made more growth than in 

 the previous year, when the ground, after being liberally manured, was 

 planted to the same crops. But the favorable change was not attributable 

 to manurial properties in the coal ashes. Before the application the soil 

 was compact and heavy, a fault that the ashes corrected, and without doubt 

 this was practically the sole effect. 



Peter Henderson on Fertiliier*. — Peter Henderson says that the best 

 known fertilizers of conunerce are Peruvian guano and bone dust. TSTiat- 

 ever kind of concentrated fertilizer is iised, he finds it well repays the labor 

 to prepare it as follows before it is applied to the land: To every bushel of 

 guano or bone dust add three bushels of leaf mold, well pulverized dry 

 muck, yard scrapings, well decomposed stable matter, or, if neither of these 

 can be obtained, any loamy soil, but in every case the material mixed ■with 

 the fertilizer must be fairly dry, aa it is used as a temporary absorbent f<W 

 the fertilizei:. 



