Kov. 2, 1903.] THE TROPICAL 
AGEICULTFRIST. 
305 
FERTILIZERS AND MANURES. 
Plants rpqaire food just «s animals do, only the food 
is of a different kind. The poil is ;iraocg other things 
a store-hoQse for plant-foi d, and in common with 
other store-houses will become exhausted in time if 
we do not return to it the plant-food removed from it. 
The snbstancea replacing this plant-food are called 
manures. Few of these manures snpply everything the 
plant requires to make it grow. But most soils con- 
tain some of the plant-food which is required in small 
quantities by the plant, in such relatively large quan- 
tities that the supply they contain is practically 
inexhaustible, as for example, iron, and we dn not 
require to consider this kind of plant-food at all when 
Bpeakinf? of manures. Generally there are three or 
four kinds of plant-food of which tho soil is liable 
to contain a comparatively small quantity and which 
as a result we must be ready to snpply in the form 
of manure when needed. These substances which 
are called, Nitrogen, Phosphoric acid, Potash and 
Lime can be separated out of the soils and out of 
the manures by Chemists, who can therefore tell us to 
a certain extent what the soils are deficient in and 
what fertilizers must be applied to give the best 
results. For the soils are not all alike and the 
plant-food one soil may be partienlary deficient in, 
another soil may have in sufSnient quantity for 
immediate use. Also the manures have not got these 
Bubstances in equal quantities. One kind of manure 
oontaina a particularly large supply of one kind of 
plant-food, another has principally another kind of 
plant-food which it can supply to the soil. One 
manure may give lartte crops on one field to which 
it supplies just the kind of plant-food which is missing 
while it will fail to produce an equally good crop 
on another field however much of it may be applied, 
if it does not contain that kind of plant-food which 
is required for that particular field. For this and 
other reasons the one-sided or special fertilizers are 
not used much in countries in which agricultural 
chemists have not been at work. As a rule only 
such manures find favour there which supply all the 
plant-foods which are likely to be wanting on an 
average soil. We may therefore call these manures 
complete fertilisers to distinguish them from the one- 
sided or special fertilizers which supply principally 
one or, at most, two kinds of plant-food. These 
complete fertilizers are generally excreta from domes- 
tic animals. In such, the different kinds of plant-food 
are generally present, only in small quantities, and 
not always in the proportion in which they are 
required by the crop on a certain soil. As a result, 
these manures may often be mixed with small quan- 
tities of special fertilizers to great advantage. For, 
this small quantity of special fertilizer is supplying 
what happens to be deficient in the general fertilizer, 
and it having a comparatively large percentage of this 
one constituent, is equivalent to a large quantity 
of the general fertilizer with which it is mixed. For 
example, if a soil happens to be greatly deficient in 
phosphoric acid, one pound of bone meal which contiina 
2') per cent of phosphoric acid may be 50 times as valu- 
able as a cattle minnre containing 0"4 per cent of 
phosphoric acid. Or if the soil happens to be parti- 
cularly deficient in potash, one pound of ashes con- 
taining 5 per cent of potash may be °qaal to 25 lb. of 
manure containing, in addition to 0-2 per cent of potash, 
0 4 per cent of phosphoric acid and ;0-5 per cent of 
nitrogen. For the latter not being required would ba 
practically valueless. If, however, the s >il \Tere equally 
deficient in both these constituent^! and nitrogen as 
well, no amount of a^hes or bone meal would do 
much good by themselves. It would require ashes and 
bone meal and poonac as well. In that case about 
one pound of bone mea', two pounds of ashes and 
four pounds of poonac, would contain the plane-food 
found in 5'1 lb. of cattle miimire having (he composi- 
tion given above. Therefore even if all the consti- 
tuents of plani-!ood supplied by cattle manure are 
deficient in the soil, we may still, to u large extent, 
replace or augment cattle manure if we desire to 
do 80. There are of course other special manures 
which may replace those mentioned above. Saltpetre 
may take the place of the ashe't and to a CHrtain 
extent that of poonac as well. Fish manure mH,y 
replace poonac?, also bone meal, though it does not 
po'se^s as high a percentage of phosphoric aoid aa 
the latter. P.lood manure may also be used in.stead 
of poonac and ia more concentrated than it. Besides 
these, there are a lot of imported fertilizers which 
maybe used. So that the agriculturist has in addition 
to the manure he produces in his own stables, a 
large number of commercial fertilizers to draw from 
should he desire to augment his snpply of manure • 
and money judiciously spent in buying fertilizers la 
generally well spent. 
Cattle Manure. —In Mysore two systems of collec- 
ting this manure exist. In the one the stables are 
cleaned out daily and the manure placed in a heap 
or a pit ; in the other, the manure ia allowed to 
accumulate in the stables. But in neither case is 
bedding or litter used to any considerable extent 
and as a matter of course ihe urine mn?t be lost 
very largely, if it does not drain away entirely. Of 
course, the relative nraount and relative composition 
of the dung tthe aolid excreta) and of the urine 
fthe liquid excreta) vary very much with different 
feeding. But on an average, with well-fed cattle, 
the quantity of plant-food excreted in the urine is 
about the same as that excreted in the dung aa deter- 
mined by Messrs. Mun^z and Guard in their experi- 
ments in Normandy. About half the quantity of the 
plant-foad of the manure is therefore lost if the 
urine is not preserved. In fact, probably a little 
more than hilf. But so far as the quality of plant-food 
ia concerned, the loas is several times as great. 
Probably, if applied directly to the field in suitable 
dilution, the urine produced by a herd of mature 
cattle would be, say, four times as valuable as the 
dang, for in the urine the nitrogen is directly available 
for the plant, while in the dung, it is comparatively 
inert. Pernnps one practical illustration from aatual 
agricultural practice may serve to bring home this 
point with greater force. A farm well known to me 
on which practidlly all the urine was allowed to 
go to waste formerly, has increased its average 
yearly crop returns for the past ten years by 300 
per cent since carefully preserving all the urine in 
its stables, and that of course without increasing 
the expense of cultivation. In order to save this 
urine it is necessary'to resort to one of two principles, 
either to have water-tight floors for the stables and 
collect the uriae in cisterns or water-tight pits, or 
to use enough bedding or litter to completely absorb 
the urine The former principle though used in 
pa,rts of Europe will, I fear, not answer well in this 
climate. For the latter purpose very varied substances 
may ba used as absorbents ; straw, dry earth, dry 
leaves, or dry ferns will answer. Straw is the material 
most extensively used for this purpose in Europe 
and America. J ungle soil if well dried, alsT forms a good 
absorbent. But of course, if wet, is practically 
valueless. In ordei' to keep it dry it must of course 
be pat under shelter on a pla'form some distance 
say, six inches or a foot from the ground. Green 
leives and twigs as employed at present to some 
extent in the Malnad are of course practically useless 
as an absorbent, though they doubtlessly help to add 
a little to the comfort of the cattle when housed 
in stables not cleaned out daily. U'y leaves s;=rve, 
however, a very useful purpose as an iibsorb?it, 
and furthermore like straw add some mmarial consti- 
tuents. In the appendix are given the analvses of 
sevci-al varieties of leavas gathered in Hassan District 
from the ground after dropping from '.he trees. These 
loaves must of course be kept dry just lik^ all other 
bedding materials, if they are to serve the purpose 
of absorbants for the liquid manure. 
Apparently, the most rational system for preserving 
the urine is to apply absorbents in the form of dry 
litter in sufficient quantity to completely abaorb the 
