Top-Dressing and the Most Suitable Manure for it.

Otago Witness, Issue 1499, 7 August 1880, Page 6

Top-Dressing and the Most Suitable Manure for it.

In this colony, and where stall feeding is not carried on extensively, farm-yard manure is not plentiful; but we have other fertilisers; and the market is now well supplied with first-olaas artificial stimulants. E very artificial haa a particular value as a manure dependent upon tne fertilizing substances which it contains, such aa guano, nitrate of soda, sulphate of ammonia j and, aa a rule, the best for top-dressings in the spring are those of anitrogenoua nature, and more quickly soluble in water. Bones # are best for autumn dressings. The art of applying these top dressings advantageously consists m adding them just when the orop is endeavouring to make the greatest growth, and when, from the absence of sufficient available food, it is unable to d> co. Fine bone dust, if previously moistened with water and allowed to ferment in a heap, makes one of the best and most permanent dressings for grass. — Abraham Lincolne's Quarterly report. The Coming American Harvert. gm We glean from a circular received by J^T San Francisco mail that the coming American harvest is confidently expected to furnish a surplus of wheat for export of between 800,000 and 900,000 tons, as.'compared with 600,035 tons ex ported during the season just closed. The Farm and Selector. We have reoeived from the author, Mr Abraham Lincolne, practical agriculturist and author of the Australian Farmer's Guide, a copy of the above useful little work. Agriculture is treated of in all its branches in a, concise and interesting manner, and intermingled with the treatises on farm work are interesting and appropriate extracts from leading Home and Colonial agrf cultural papers, farm receipts, hints, &o. The Utilisation of Sewage as a Fertiliser The immense quantity of fertilising mattersrepresented by at least 200 ounces of ammonia annually for every member of the population— which is now virtually altogether lost to English agriculture (cays the Agricultural Gazette) is at present such a drain upon the soil, and might be such an enrichment of it, that the subjeot is not likely to be lost sight of. . . . The phosphates, alkalies, ammonia, which are now poured into the rivers from our town drains are wanted by our farmers, and have to be brought long distances at great cost for farm use. The matters now wasted exceed in quantity and value all the guanos and boteslwhich at such expense are now imported; and it seems literally a shame, both to engineers andtoagrionlturists, that some way of applying them to the growth of plants has not long ere now been generally adopted. Not only is there a reward on the one hand—there is a penalty on the other—urging attention to the problem. The pollution of the rivers ia a forbidden offence, visited with punishment, and the agricultural treatment is the only one which offers a chance of suooesa, whether the object be to realise a value or to abateanuisanoe. . . . That a well-managed sewage farmjis neither a nuisance nor a danger— that the immense produce of its fields is perfectly wholesome food—that if consumed upon the land there will be an immense surplus of farm manure available for use on neighbouring lands—and that the effluent water from suoh farms is perfectly innoouous—is certain.