NIGHT SOIL, SALT, MUCK. 29 



cows, it is preferable to any concentrated fertilizer. Rotted stable 

 manure, to produce full crops, should be spread on the ground not 

 less than three inches thick (our market gardeners use from fifty to 

 seventy-five tons of well rotted stable manure per acre when no con- 

 centrated fertilizer is used), and should be thoroughly mixed with the 

 soil by plowing or spading. The refuse hops from breweries form an 

 excellent fertilizer, at least one-half more valuable, bulk for bulk, than 

 stable manure. Other excellent fertilizers are obtained from the 

 scrapings or shavings from horn or whalebone manufactories. The 

 best way to make these quickly available is to compost them with 

 hot manure, in the proportion of one ton of refuse horn or whalebone 

 with fifteen tons of manure. The heated manure extracts the oil,, 

 which is intermingled with the whole. 



The manure from the chicken or pigeon house is very valuable, and 

 when composted as directed for bone dust and guano, has at least 

 one-third their value. Castor oil pomace is also valuable in about 

 the same proportion. 



Poudrette is the name given to a commercial fertilizer, the composi- 

 tion of which is night soil, and dried swamp muck or charcoal dust 

 as an absorbent. It is sold at about $12 to $15 per ton, and at that 

 price may be equal in value, if too much of the absorbing material i& 

 not used, to bone dust at $40 per ton. 



In my early experience as a market gardener, I used large quan- 

 tities of night soil for vegetable crops with the very best results. It 

 was mixed with stable manure at the rate of about one ton of night 

 soil to fifteen tons of stable manure, and put on the land, so mixed, 

 at the rate of twenty-five tons per acre. In the absence of stable 

 manure, dry soil, charcoal dust, sawdust, or any material that will 

 absorb it, will do. Thus mixed, if equal quantities of each have been 

 used, ten tons may be used per acre, if plowed in ; if sowed on top, 

 to be harrowed in, say five tons. 



Salt has little or no value as a fertilizer, except as a medium of 

 absorbing moisture ; for experience shows that soils impregnated by 

 saline matter are no more fertile than those inland, out of the reach 

 of such an atmosphere. 



Muck is the name given to a deposit usually largely composed of 

 vegetable matter, found in swamps or in hollows in forest lands. Of 

 itself it has usually but little fertilizing property, but from its porous- 

 nature, when dry, it is one of the best materials to use to mix 

 with other manures as an absorbent. It can be used to great ad- 

 vantage if dug out in winter and piled up in narrow ridges, so that 

 it can be partly dried and " sweetened " in summer. Thus dry, if 

 mixed with stable manure, or, better yet, thrown in layers three or four 



