FERTILIZERS. 70 



Home-Made Gnano. — Save all your fowl manure from sun and r»in. 

 To prepare it for use, spread a layer of dry swamp muck (the blacker it is 

 the better) on your bam floor, and dump on it the whole of your fowl ma- 

 nure; beat it into a fine powder with the ba^^^k of your spade; this done, add 

 hard wood ashes and plaster of Paris, so that the compound shall be com- 

 posed of the following proportions: Dried muck, four bushels; fowl manure, 

 two bushels; ashes, one bushel; plaster, one and one-half bushels. Mix 

 thoroughly, and spare no labor; for, in this matter, \h°. effort expended will 

 be well paid for. A Uttle before planting, moisten the heap with water, or, 

 better still, with urine; cover well over with old mats, and let it lie till 

 wanted for use. Apply it to beans, com, or potatoes, at the rate of a hand- 

 ful to a hill; and mix with the soil before dropping the seed. This will be 

 found the best substitute for guano ever invented, and may be depended on 

 for bringing great crops of turnips, com, potatoes, etc. 



Materials for Compost. — In several of the States compost heap may be 

 made of muck or earth for a basis; to this maybe added leaves, cotton-seed, 

 ashes, gympsum, night soil, stable manure, trash from the fields (except 

 weeds in seed), and all the slops from the houses and cabins. If desired, 

 bone-dust may be added, but the fine artificial fertilizers will be better, ii 

 used by themselves. 



Value of Vegetable Substances. — The tops of turnips, potatoes, beets, 

 carrots and parsnips are very valuable and should not go to waste. Those 

 of the beets are rich in nitrogen, while potato tops contain a large proportion 

 of potash. All of them contain both in more or less quantity. They rot 

 quickly, and should be added to the compost heap when unfit for other pur- 

 poses. 



Facts Regarding Fertilizers. — The raising of thirty bushels of wheat 

 to the acre \^-ill remove from the laud fifty-one pounds of nitrogen, twenty- 

 four pounds of phosphoric acid and thirty-nine pounds of potash. This can 

 be replaced by sixty pounds of sulphate of ammonia, 171 pounds of super- 

 phosphate of lime, and seventy-seven pounds of chloride of potassitun. 



Alternating Manure. — Market gardeners find it profitable to alternate 

 stable with other manures rather than use the same kind 'continuously on 

 the same laud. Farmers can take a hint from this. Perhaps one reason 

 why phosphates have been so largely successful has been because the sta- 

 ble manures previously used have been deficient in phosphoric acid. 



Ho-w to Use Hen Manure. — The manure from the poultry house is 

 valuable for any crop. It may be spread on grass very thinly, about two 

 barrels per acre being enough. One way to get it fine is to spread it on the 

 bam floor and thrash it with a flail, but a wet cloth should be tied around 

 the mouth or nose while this is being done. 



Xitrogen for Potatoe.4. — Potatoes need nitrogen and potash. Fresh 

 manures appUed in spring increase the liability of disease. We believe po- 

 tatoes can be raised profitably with chemicals, when farmers will experi- 

 ment at home and learn how to buy just what is needed and nothing more. 



Nitrate of Soda for "Wbeat. — An authority avers that an application of 

 100 pounds of nitrate of soda to an acre of wheat, when the crop looks weak, 

 will show its benefit in a few days, not only improving it in growth, but 

 largely increasing the yield. 



