160 



THE GARDENEK'S ASSISTANT. 



in a liquid form. Half an ounce of guano to 

 a gallon of water is considered to be a safe 

 proportion for all plants; and it will be a safer 

 course to repeat the dose of this weak solution 

 rather than to increase its strength. 



Dung of Poultry. — The dung of fowls is a 

 manure somewhat analogous to guano, though 

 iar less valuable than that material, weight for 

 weight. To begin with, the food of hens, pigeons, 

 ducks, and geese is of vegetable rather than of 

 animal origin, while the sea-fowl that produced 

 the guano lived upon fish, and consequently 

 voided a more highly nitrogenized excrement, 

 and, moreover, the guano has become highly 

 concentrated by the peculiar processes of slow 

 decay to which it has long been subjected. 



Selected constituents in one ton of poultry dung, in one ton of 

 farmyard manure, and in one ton of guano. 



Excrement of- 



Hens, 



Pigeons, 



Ducks, 

 Geese, 



Farmyard Manure, 

 Peruvian Guano, 



Nitrogen. 



Potash. 



Lime. 



lbs. 



lbs. 



lbs. 



43 



19 



58 



47 



25 



44 



27 



13 



23 



15 



21 



13 



10 



12 



39 



156 



67 



269 



Phosphoric 

 Acid. 



lbs. 

 39 

 41 

 31 

 12 



6 

 314 



Since poultry manure is apt to be sticky when 

 fresh, and lumpy when dry, it is not particu- 

 larly well fitted to be used in the garden as a 

 concentrated fertilizer, and it may consequently 

 well be relegated to the compost heap, as a 

 general rule. It is to be observed, however, 

 that much of the nitrogen in the dung of fowls 

 is in the form of uric acid, a substance directly 

 assimilable by plants, and easily converted into 

 oxalate of ammonia by putrefaction. The fore- 

 going data show how much richer poultry man- 

 ure is in plant-food than ordinary farmyard 

 manure, and that it must be largely diluted 

 with soil or other materials before being put 

 upon the garden, otherwise the plants to which 

 it is applied will be burnt up. 



Poultry manure is a valuable fertilizer, al- 

 though it differs, as shown above, very con- 

 siderably from guano in that it has never been 

 concentrated and, so to say, purified, by the 

 slow processes of fermentation to which the 

 guano beds have been subjected. 



Dung* differ as Animals do. — It hardly needs 

 to be explained that each kind of manure has 

 its own characteristics and peculiarities, in con- 

 sonance with the fact that each kind of animal 

 has its own way of utilizing and of rejecting 

 food. There are, naturally enough, says Storer, 



as wide differences between the excrements of 

 dogs and cows as there are between the struc- 

 ture, kinds of food, and habits of life of the two 

 animals. In any event, the dung of flesh-eating 

 animals — that of cats, for example — will mani- 

 festly be richer in nitrogen, and sometimes in 

 phosphates also, than that of grazing animals. 

 The same reasoning will apply to the mixed 

 feeders, and it is true in fact that the excrements 

 of men, and swine, and poultry are held to be 

 more valuable than those of grass-eating animals. 

 It is noteworthy, by the way, that the French 

 and German cultivators who are accustomed to 

 pasture swine, or to feed them upon very thin 

 wash of one kind or another, hold hog manure 

 in comparatively small esteem. It is only in 

 England, where hogs habitually get grain or 

 milk to eat, that their manure is thought to be 

 worth much. 



The kind and quantity of litter used for the 

 bedding of animals affects the value of the 

 manure as employed for the garden very con- 

 siderably, and this influence depends, first, on 

 its chemical composition, in so far as the litter 

 contains nitrogen, potash, phosphoric acid, &c, 

 which add to the amount of plant-food in the 

 soil. 



The following table shows the amount of the 

 most valuable constituents in certain materials 

 commonly used as litter for farm animals : — 



Percentages of certain Constituents of Litter. 





Nitrogen. 



Phosphoric 

 Acid. 



Potash. 



Wheat straw, 



0-48 



0-23 



0-49 



Barley straw, . 



0-48 



0-19 



0-93 



Oat straw, 



0-40 



0-28 



0-97 



Pea haulm, 



1-04 



0-38 



1-07 



Potato haulm, ... 



0-50 



010 



0-30 



Heather,... 



0-90 



o-io 



0-40 



Fern, 



2-40 



0-45 



2-42 



Paishes, ... 



0-40 



0-35 



1-67 



Beech-tree leaves, 



0-80 



0-24 



0-30 



Peat, 



1-50 



trace. 



0-10 



Urine as a Manure. — The nitrogen in mere 

 dung is very inferior in quality to that in urine, 

 since most of it is insoluble and in a condition 

 unassimilable by plants. It is contained chiefly 

 in the undigested, not to say indigestible, 

 portions of food which have been expelled by 

 the animal as useless for his purposes, while the 

 nitrogen in urine is all in solution, and in a con- 

 dition fit to be immediately taken up by plants. 



Urine, before being applied to garden plants, 

 should be allowed to putrefy; it should then be 

 largely diluted with water, or mixed with soil 

 or other substances, so as to form a compost; 

 for, when used in an unmixed state, it is very 



