MANURIAL PRACTICES IN JAPAN.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 16326, 23 August 1913, Page 2

MANURIAL PRACTICES IN JAPAN.

That which most impresses an agri* cultural observer is the manurial practice of the littlo Japs. As there are only a little over 1,000,000 each of cattle and horses in Japan, and .sheep and goats are practically non-existent, •i lie manure supplied by live stock .is altogether an insignificant quantity. The great source of manure is human excrement or night-soil, and tho care exercised on the collection, preparation, conservation and application of this excellent manure is extraordinary. Whether in town or country non© of it is lost to the land. All is carefully collected and stored at the homesteads or in the fields in vats with closely thatched roofs, which not only protect the contents from sun and rain, but prevent over-free circulation of airland consequent loss of ammonia. Nightsoil is never applied fresh to the land. After fermenting in the vats for not less than ten days, it is found to be converted into a semi-fluid mass { and l is considered ready for use. It is applied to crops diluted with water from one to ten times its own bulk, the first dose on the spot where the Beeds are to bo sown of seedlings planted, while subsequent doses are given to each plant as required, the last at the time when the plant is coming into flower. No crop is grown without manure, and every plant or group of plants receives its specific dose, not only once, but several times during the growing sear son. It will be conceded that such a system of conservation and application, ’ exceedingly laborious as it is, involves a minimum of waste. ... • Equal car© is bestowed on the preparation of compost. It is ‘ absolutely universal as a manure; it is tho solid or drv complement of the equally universal liquid X (night-soil), and is a practical illustration of the ‘ waste nothing’ principle of Japanese farming. Every scrap of organic matter, carefully searched out and collected, am- * rnal oxcreta, always excluding human, hut including those of fowls and or pigeons, which are often kept for the purpose, leaves, weeds, straw, and all sorts of vegetable refuse from tho town, farm, or house, such as potato peelings, radish tops, and so forth, dead silkworms and their pupa), slaked lime ana shells, bones of all sorts pounded small, ■wood and straw ashes, indigo retuse, astragalus grown after a paddy cropj loamy earth, etc., are all pressed into service. These materials are piled up in the ward or under a shed: usually a layer of vegetable matter first, then animal dung, then lime, powdered shells and wood ashes; the mass is then moistened with the liquid drammgs from tho stables, if any, or more generally with human urine, covered with earth and allowed to ferment together in a mass which is usually sheltered from tlie rain" by stout straw _ mats, if not under a slied. Tbe mass is occasionally turned over, and is left until tlio whole lias decomposed into a fir.o rich nutrient earth (the Japanese name is ‘manurial earth’) which is passed through a sieve and used as a fine powder especially at sowing time; the coarse matter which does not pass the sieve forms part of the next- heap. Occasionally it is said that the mass is burnt, the resulting black earth being used in the same way.”