GARDENING NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, 1 February 1917, Page 56

GARDENING NOTES

(By Mr. J. Joyce, Landscape Gardener, Christchurch.)

• THE VALUE OF MANURES (Continued). , Poultry Manure. This is the richest, most concentrated, and most active of all farm manures. The food of fowls is principally seeds and insects, all of which are rich with fertilising matter. ' When dry, hen manure is worth about- as much as Peruvian guano, which costs from 70 to 100 dollars per ton. Unless kept dry it is rapidly wasted; probably the best way of preserving is to keep loose, dry soil on the floor of the hen house, upon which the droppings will fall. It should be forked over occasionally, as it soon becomes as rich a fertiliser as the clear manure. Application of Poultry Manure.—Care must be taken in applying this manure, since there is danger cf using too much. It is a very strong article and comparatively little goes a long way. It may be scattered quite sparingly if applied dry. A better method is to take, say half a bushel of manure, as it comes from the coop, put into a tight barrel, and then fill the barrel with water. Stir it occasionally, and by the next evening it will be ready for use for the garden. This is the best farmyard manure which can be found. Ashes as Manure.- ashes are beneficial to all crops of grain, roots, grass, and fruit, and cannot be applied amiss. From ten to forty bushels per acre can be applied without danger of excess. Scatter them over the ploughed land and harrow them in. Coal ashes are only used for stirring up the soil so as to keep it loose. All primings of orchards and the clippings of hedges, etc., should be piled up and burned; the ashes are valuable as manure. Everyone knows how much better vegetation grows on ground where a brush heap has been burned. Slops as a Fertiliser. —Instead of throwing kitchen slops into the backyard to contaminate well and cistern and breed diarrhoea, typhoid, and other fevers, prepare a proper receptacle. A cemented cistern should be built a good distance from the house, away from the well, and to this all the kitchen slops, vegetable waste, etc., should be conducted through a suitable pipe or trough to be cleaned out as occasion requires. An immense amount of the best fertilisers could be made in this way. A Good Garden Fertiliser.A valuable fertiliser, and one within the reach of everyone for garden culture, as well as for top dressing grass, is hen manure, ashes, plaster, and salt mixed in equal quantities, except the salt, of which a fourth will be sufficient. Mix and apply broadcast. It gives good results on all soils and crops. Rain Water as a Fertiliser.—Rain water is rich with plant-growing elements gathered from the air in its formation and passage through it to the earth. It is therefore too valuable to be lost, and it should never be allowed to run off the land. Road Sweepings. Those who keep poultry should procure a few loads of road dust. It is a valuable fertiliser, nearly as strong as guano, with none of its disagreeable odor. Place an inch or two in the bottom of the barrel, then, as the poultry house is regularly cleaned, deposit a layer an inch or two thick on the cleanings, and so on alternately, layers of each, until the barrel is filled. The thinner the layer is the more perfect will be the intermixture of the ingredients. The contents may be pounded on the floor into a fine powder and may be sown from a drill. Salt as a Fertiliser.—lt keens the land cool, being more of an absorbent than a fertiliser proper. It neutralises drought ; exterminates all soil vermin, and is said to prevent potato rot. It'; glazes and stiffens straw, and prevents rust. It keeps the soil in such condition that the berry of grain fills plumply regardless of hot, dry weather. From one, to six bushels per

acre s should. be 5 applied when the grain is a few inches high. On grass and all the grains there is no shadow of doubt but that a liberal top-dressing of salt is highly valuable.