HOCKINGS GARDEN MANUAL. 



9 



VALUE OF MANURES. 



The saving and application of manures have 

 received much attention of late years in England, and 

 the farmers of Queensland would do well to follow the 

 example of the Chinese gardeners and Belgian farmers 

 in this respect. Refuse of every description, bones, 

 human excrement, and the excrement of all the domestic 

 animals and fowls, are carefully collected and applied 

 to the soil, and urine, which is in many countries en- 

 tirely neglected, is carefully collected in tanks. With 

 regard to the value of the latter, Dr. Hodges says : " A 

 farmer who keeps three stall-fed cows and one horse, 

 and collects merely the solid dung, allowing the urine 

 to escape into the drains, loses annually in the cow 

 urine 3069 lbs., and in that of the horse, 89 lbs. ; in all 

 upwards of 28 cwt. of dry fertilizing matter, equal in 

 virtue to the best Peruvian Guano, and which would be 

 capable, without the addition of any other manure, of 

 keeping seven acres of land in the most fertile condition." 

 The same quantity of Guano would be worth upwards 

 of £23 in Brisbane. 



" The bodies of both men and animals are derived 

 from the same materials as the plants that we culti- 

 vate — both are from the same soil — creatures of the 

 dust ; the plant directly deriving the materials of its 

 growth from the minerals of the held and the gases 

 of the air, and the animal indirectly through the 

 vegetable creation. Chemistry has clearly shown us 

 that the lime of our limestone mountains, the potash 

 which exists in our granite rocks, and the phosphorous 

 of our soils, by the wonderful arrangements of Provi- 

 dence, become food for our crops, and ultimately build 

 up the structure of our bodies. Nor are these mate- 

 rials which nature provides in the earth squandered : a 

 wonderful economy is displayed in every part of 

 creation. The matters which we receive in our food, 



