MANURE. (From a correspondent of the Argus.)

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XIII, Issue 908, 11 March 1856, Page 4

MANURE. (From a correspondent of the Argus.)

The high price of suburban land having driven our agriculturists into remote and thinly-popula-ted districts, it becomes desirable that a supply of manure (the use of which, whatever may be urged to the contrary, is in most parts indispensable) should be furnished on the principle of multum in paroo. The desideratum is — a cheap substance containing a fertilising principle in the most condensed form, and of the most lasting efficacy. These several requisites suggest the utility of a substance of wbieh there is great •waste in the colony — viz., bones. Although the fertilising principle exists in guano in a less bulky and more condensed form than in almost any other substances, yet, inasmuch as it is chiefly composed of ammoniacal salts, whose ammonia would speedily exhale into the air, it cannot be profitably used in this climate. The chief fertilising property of bones, phosphate of lime, is not open to the same objection ) add to which, land manured with bones, either in dust or solution, does not require dressing, year by year, which is the case where guano is employed, even in cliruates fovorable to its use. As some of your readers may have a sufficient supply of water to use bones as a liquid manure, and yet may not be aware of the mode of dissolving them, I subjoin particulars of the process. To an acre of ground take three bushels of bone-dust, about 130 lbs. weight, to wbieh add 75 lbs. of sulphuric acid immediately afterwards and 22 gallons of water. Stir the above mixture well together and let it remain twenty-four hours, by which time the mixture will assume the consistency of gruel, and the particles of bones, with few exceptions, will be completely dissolved j then add about 700 gallons of water. The ground is to be watered with the solution, and harrowed the day following, after which the seed may: be sown. if bone-d'asJ is used, 18 bushels ivthp acre will be sufficient '