MANURES, THEIR KINDS AND USES. 37 



First. No land will remain fertile for a long number 

 of years, if continuously manured with a special fertil- 

 izer alone, but will require a rotation of manures, as well 

 as of crops. 



Second. Land, to respond properly to artificial fer- 

 tilizers, must be well stored with vegetable matter. 



Third. After the gardener has accumulated as large a 

 pile of home-made manure as possible, by raking and scrap- 

 ing into his compost heap every article fit for plant-food 

 within his reach, let him supplement it with all the artific- 

 ial fertilizers of the best quality (for he cannot afford to 

 pay freight on sand and water, and other adulterations) 

 that it needs, and that he can use upon his crops with 

 profit. 



COTTON SEED. 



The chemical analysis of cotton seed shows it to be the 

 most concentrated and nutritious cattle-food known; and 

 experience has corroborated the fact. It is considered 

 injurious to swine. Cattle eliminate from it very little 

 of the manurial elements, and their droppings, after the 

 use of cotton seed as a food, as shown by Sir J. B. 

 Lawes, form a manure of the best character. Their albu- 

 minoids are not as ready to undergo fermentation, and 

 therefore the ammonia is not so quickly available, as 

 those of animal substances; it is therefore necessary that 

 they shall have been fermented. If the truck-farmer be 

 at the same time a cotton planter, or be located where he 

 can conveniently procure cotton seed cheaply, he needs 

 no other strong supplement to his manure pile. Should 

 he desire to increase its efficacy for a special crop, an ad- 

 dition of forty or fifty pounds of a good potash salt, or 

 four hundred or five hundred pounds of an acid phos- 

 phate per ton of the compost, would answer 7 the purpose, 

 if the cotton seed was about equal in weight to the for- 

 mer. It is too rich to feed alone, and should be consid- 



