MANURES— SPECIAL OR CONCENTRATED FER- 

 TILIZERS. 



BY JAMES R. NICHOLS, M. D., OF HAVERHILL. 



Nothing more readily attracts the attention of farmers, 

 or conveys more palpable ideas of value, than hulk in 

 manurial substances, and yet, nothing is more deceptive 

 or fallacious. A huge bank of animal excrement under 

 the eves droppings of the barn, has indeed a positive 

 value, but it does not consist in the great mass of the 

 material of which it is made up. Squeeze out the water, 

 remove the sand and chaff, and we can place all the fer- 

 tilizing elements of that heap in the smallest sized dump 

 cart. The high value of stable or barn yard manure, 

 is not found in the eighty or ninety per cent of water, 

 silica, etc., which it contains, but in the nitrogenous ele- 

 ments — the potash, soda and phosphatic salts, which in 

 amount occupy relatively a most insignificant position. 

 And I may say further, that the excrementitious salts 

 found in the manure heap, have the highest positive val- 

 ue as plant food, of any substances with which we are 

 acquainted. They exist in a form ready to be again ta- 

 ken up by plants and assimilated into the living organ- 

 ism. They differ from tlie same class of agents found 

 13 



