172 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER 
[ March 4, 1886. 
function which our rivers and streams perform as natural drainers of the 
land, Mr. Turner showed how important were the advantages which 
accrued when land was systematically and properly drained of super¬ 
abundant moisture. By a thorough system of drainage the use of tillage 
was rendered much more effective, the land had an increased temperature 
in consequence of lessened evaporation, it was easier to cultivate and less 
labour was required in the operation, and, finally, the crops were earlier 
and more abundant. There was a long and interesting discussion, which 
was, however, entirely in harmony with Mr. Turner’s paper, A hearty 
vote of thanks was given to Mr. Turner, on the motion of Messrs. Fallas, 
Newton, Tunnacliffe, and other gentlemen, who bore testimony to the 
valuable and practical character of the paper. 
- In the Transactions of the Penzance Natural History Society, 
Mr. Colenso calls attention to the rapidly increasing value as an article of 
export from New Zealand, of a New Edible Fungus—Hirneola 
POLYTricha. This Mushroom, first described from the East Indies and 
Java by Montagne, is of various sizes and shapes, some specimens measur¬ 
ing even a few inches. It is found in New Zealand growing on the 
trunks of trees, both on living and on decaying ones, especially on the 
latter while standing, particularly on the stems of Corynocarpus lsevigata 
and on Melicytus ramiflorus. Both of these are endemic. The former is 
mostly confined to the seashore, where it often forms dense and continuous 
thickets. The latter tree is scatterel plentifully throughout the country. 
When dry the Mushroom becomes shrivelled np, and is as hard as horn ; 
when wet it is soft and elastic, almost sub-gelatinous. It grows in com¬ 
pact gregarious masses. The market for this fungus is China, where it is 
largely used by the Chinese in soups. It appears that another species of 
the same genus indigenous in North China has long been an article of 
commerce. Mr. Berkeley notes of our British species, H. Auricula-Judae> 
that it was once a popular remedy for sore throats, and adds that it is still 
occasionally sold at Covent Garden Market. The New Zealand species is 
plentiful, and obtained at little cost, the drying of it being an easy matter. 
Originally the price paid to collectors was Id. per pound ; now it is 
nominally 2jd., while its retail price in China is five times this. The de- 
lared value per ton at the Customs ranges from £33 to £53 a ton, and is 
doubtless much below its real value. During the last twelve years some 
858 tons of this fungus were exported, chiefly from the ports of Auckland 
and Wellington, and of a declared value of almost £80,000. 
A COMPARISON OF MANURES FOR THE GARDEN AND 
ORCHARD. 
[A paper by Professor Q. C. Caldwell, Ithaca, New York, read before the Massachusetts 
Horticultural Society.] 
(Continued from page 157.) 
How do these prices compare with those actually paid for these plant 
nutrients in such animal or vegetable manures as gardeners or farmers 
buy ? 
Two or three years ago there came to me from a gentleman of this 
neighbourhood a series of questions as to the comparative cheapness of 
s everal of these manures. The questions could be answered, at least with 
approximate satisfaction, since the inquirer was fortunately able to give me 
the cost per ton, at his own place, of all the materials in question. I had 
not time to analyse samples of the manures, and for the necessary infor¬ 
mation as to their composition I had to refer to the tables giving the average 
composition of such matters ; if my estimates could have been based on 
actual analyses of the materials, they might have been somewhat, but cer¬ 
tainly not very, different. 
The results of my calculations are set forth in the following table :_ 
CD 
d 
o 
1000 pounds contained 
of 
Cost, in cents, per 
pound of the 
KIND' OF MANURE 
g 
© 
*t 
CD 
a 
-A3 
DO 
O 
o 
a 
<p 
be 
o 
-g 
s 
Phosphoric 
acid. 
Potash. 
Nitrogen, j 
Phosphorio 
acid. 
Potash. 
Cow manure 1. 
dol. c. 
1 16 
4 
1.6 
3»6 
19.2 
10.8 
6.0 
Horse manure .. 
1 54 
7 
15 
9.5 
14.1 
7.9 
4.4 
Night-soil. 
0 43 
7 
14 0 
2.0 
2.8 
1.6 
0.9 
Kockweed. 
1 21 
4 
2.3 
4.0 
20.5 
11.5 
6.3 
Fish-chum, half dry .. 
6 50 
43 
50.0 
9.1 
5.1 
Hen manure 
4 00 
10 
f6.0 
*5.6 
27.0 
15.0 
8.4 
Tanners’ waste. 
0 78 
72 
19.0 
.... 
0.9 
0.5 
If my figures are not wrong, the cow manure is not a cheap source of 
plant food; it would have to be looked upon as more costly than commercial 
fertilisers were it not for the large amount of humus forming material that 
it contains; this may offset the high cost of the important plant nutrients 
nit. But then we have just as much of this humus-forming material in 
orse manure; and the important plant nutrients in that, instead of being 
more costly than in the commercial fertiliser, are actually cheaper. The night- 
soil costs nothing except for the hauling ; the plant food in it is remark¬ 
ably cheap, costing only about a fifth as much as in horse manure ; and one 
can see no reason why a pound of nitrogen in it should not be just as good 
for crop production as a pound of the same nutrient in horse manure. Rock- 
weed is an expensive manure, much more so than commercial manures, 
while the plant food in it certainly cannot be any more available or valuable 
than in fine bone meal, or in good horse manure, or than in the fish-chum 
which provides nitrogen and phosphoric ac ; d at half the cost. 
Hen manure is another expensive fertiliser: its plant food costs more 
than that in any other fertiliser, natural or artificial. Even nitrogen in 
ammonia salts costs only 22 cents, and phosphoric acid in the best 
superphosphate only 10 cents a lb. From my point of view I should say 
that a great deal more was paid for that manure than it was worth. As to 
the tanners’ waste I had to do some guessing; I took it to be mostly hair 
and clippings of fresh skins ; it cost nothing, except for the hauling. If I 
was right in my conjecture as to its character, it is rich in both nitrogen 
and phosphoric acid, and is by far the cheapest manure of all; but its action 
may be much slower than many of the other manures in the list, which 
would detract from its value. Granting all that, it would still appear to be 
a very cheap manure. 
Making all due allowance throughout these estimates for the possible 
deviations from the general average composition of such materials, I still 
affirm that where they come out so widely apart as they do in some cases, 
they indicate real and undoubted differences in the cost of the plant food 
that may be of considerable practical importance to the buyer of such 
manures. 
We may look for a moment, before I close, at this same matter from 
another point of view. On the University farm at Cornell, Professor 
Roberts, by a careful system of saving and housing his stable manure, and 
rich feeding of his stock, largely milch cows, has obtained a product that, 
analysed in my laboratory, was found to contain 0-7 per cent, of nitrogen, 0’4 
of phosphoric acid, and 0 - 84 of potash. The manure was applied at the 
rate of 10 tons to the acre, which quantity would contain about 150 pounds 
of nitrogen, 80 of phosphoric acid, and 160 of potash. These amounts of 
the three nutrients would cost, in a commercial fertiliser, at the same rates 
per pound as in the other calculations whose results have been given, about 
40 dollars ; but this 10 tons of manure did not begin to cost so much—it 
was the waste of the animals producing a revenue by their milk, or growth, 
or work. It did undoubtedly cost something, but I think it is safe to say 
not over 1 dollar 50 cents a ton, or half as much as the horse manure of 
which an account has been given above. This would make the plant food 
in it cost less than half as much as in that manure, and much less than in 
commercial fertilisers. 
It may seem to many that thus far I have spoken only unfavourably of 
the use of commercial fertilisers; but I would not wish to leave you with 
the impression on your minds that I regard them with disfavour. On the 
contrary, I do not believe we could get along without them in general crop¬ 
growing ; and I see no reason why, if they are judiciously used, they should 
not do as much for horticulture as they are doing for agriculture. If the 
farmer succeeds better in getting profitable returns from an investment in 
a certain quantity of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash in a super¬ 
phosphate than the horticulturist doeB, it may be because the latter has not 
learned by experience, as the former has, how to get such returns; and 
as long as he can procure animal manures by any sort of management, he 
will continue to use them rather than get out of the ruts and learn how to 
use something else in place of them. So far as the humus is concerned, on 
whose apparent usefulness I have dwelt so long, its due proportion in the 
soil can be maintained by green manuring, and without getting or making 
much stable manure, or by spreading over the uplands some of the contents 
of the muck deposits that are to be found on so many farms. 
In order, however, to enable these commercial manures to compete with 
the cheaper plant food in animal manures, they must be bought at such 
rates, and in such ways, as to reduce the cost of the plant food they contain 
to as low a point as possible. A comparison of the cost of plant food in 
mixed fertilisers, such as superphosphate and special manures, with cash 
prices for precisely the same quality in the raw materials used by the 
manufacturers for making up these mixed fertilisers, shows that in the 
last two years consumers have paid from 18 to 20 per cent, more for the 
plant food in the former than in the latter, or the raw materials ; or, stated 
in another way, about 33 dollars expended in the raw materials would buy 
just as much and just as valuable plant food as would cost 40 dollars in 
superphosphates or specials. These figures represent the average difference 
in favour of getting the raw materials directly ; sometimes the superphos¬ 
phate is sold at such low rates that its plant food is almost as cheap as in 
any other form in the market; but, on the other hand, the difference is 
sometimes very much larger in favour of the raw materials. For instance : 
in one case a Connecticut farmer waE asked to pay, and perhaps he did 
pay, 45 dollars for a certain quantity and quality of plant food that would 
have cost him but about 26 dollars in the raw material. These raw materials 
are such as nitrate of soda, sulphate of ammonia, dried blood, and dried 
and ground fish-waste, any of which may be used for charging a fertiliser 
with nitrogen ; plain superphosphate—that is, without any nitrogen—for 
supplying the soluble phosphoric acid, and potash salts for the potash. 
A Connecticut farmer tried this home-mixing last year, using 4 tons of 
dissolved bones, 1 ton of muriate of potash, and 1 ton of sulphate of 
ammonia, making thus an excellent and really ammoniated superphosphate. 
It cost him, including materials, freight, and labour, 36 dollars 20 cents per 
ton; analysed at the Experiment Station, it was reported to be worth, at 
current prices, 45 dollars, which was a very much better showing than was 
made by any one of the 50 samples of superphosphate analysed at the same 
station during the year. The consumer had at the same time the great 
advantage of knowing just what the mixture was made of; that, for 
example, its nitrogen was in the form of sulphate of ammonia, the most 
costly and the most valuable form of nitrogenous plant food, and not of 
roasted and ground leather-waste, an utterly worthless form of nitrogenous 
plant food. Other farmers of that State have done likewise, and with good 
results also, both in the analysis and in the field. 
Instead of closing with some flourish of a peroration, it will, I think 
be more in keeping with the character of my lecture if I should sum u 
