MANURE. Zibl, ARAB.
Khad, Khau, Emu, Paus, . D.
The productiveness of any soil depends princi pally on its natural or artificial capability of retaining or transmitting its moisture, the vehicle, at least, by which the nourishment' s conveyed to plants. The soil whose constituent parts are best adapted for retaining a sufficient supply, and transmitting a proper portion in very dry weather to the plants growing in it, without holding it in injurious quantities in the time of very wet weather, is possessed of the principle of vegeta tion, and will be found to be of the most productive nature. The too tenacious clay soils must be made artificially friable, by drainage and the admixture of marls, sands, etc., and kept so, and be pulverized and mechanically altered, before they can become productive. Until this is done, such soils resist effectually the enriching influence of rains and dews, which merely fall on their surface, and either run off or lie there without penetrating into them. The sun and wind also may beat on them and blow over them, but they can never waken up the dormant energy that lies within ; they only by their repeated attacks dry and harden the surface, crack it into irregular portions, and more firmly lock up any languid and dormant principles of vegetable:life that may be within the mass. When clay is in excess, it is remedied by the application of sand, chalk, marl, or burned clay, light unfermented manures, and perfect pulverization, to make the soil friable. There are in soil eleven substances necessary for the growth of vegetables, viz. potash, soda, lime, magnesia, alumina, silica, iron, manganese, sulphur, phosphorus, and chlorine ; and soil is' composed of two classes of ingredients,—one, the inorganic or mineral ; the other, the organic, or such as have at some time formed parts of indi viduals of the animal or vegetable kingdoms. Certain phosphates, though present in soil in the smallest quantity, are its most important mineral constituents, and are derived principally from the animal kingdom ; and the following substances, procurable in considerable quantities in India, may be employed as Manures :—Animal manure, stable manure, and old,'dung of all animals ; guano, pouvre,, night-soil, bones of all animals, fresh,. calcined; or merely- crushed, burnt earth, dead animals' blood, and animals'. hair, hoofs, horns, parings' of skins, offal, urine, feathers, fish ; and the quickest way to utilize animal substances is. to throw them into a stone-lined with water, quicklime, and wood-ashes ; the tank should be kept covered, and the liquid parts may be run off from below. Weeds, green, dry,• and burnt, branches and, leaves of trees both fresh and dry, the leaves of oil-producing plants and those that contain milky juices being the best, as they yield nitrogen, ammonia, and carbonic acid ; rotten wood, tan-bark ; straw, stubble, roots, etc. ; lime, burnt shells, old mortar, gypsum, refuse of soda water, sulphuric and nitric acid, manu factures; broken bricks and' tiles, silt and sand from tank and river beds, marls, soda, potash, and magnesian earth, road-dust, house-sweepings, wood-ashes, coal-ashes, burnt cow-dung, muriates, carbonates, sulphates, nitrates and acetates of potash and soda, soot, gas, liquor and sulphate of ammonia, phosphate and superphosphate of lime, tartrates and acetates of iron, refuse from dye works, leaf-mould ; leaves both green and dry, if steeped for a week in water, decay afterwards much more rapidly, and the brown liquor that comes from them is good liquid manure ; the leaves should then be laid in alternate layers with earth and half-burnt weeds, and the heap should be covered with matting to prevent the escape of the moisture and gases. If watered
and turned once in ten days, the leaf-mould will be fit for use in three months. Keep dung-heaps covered, and dilute liquid manure in them with one or two waters, by which the escape of ammonia will be in a great measure prevented. Liebig says a soil will reach its point of ex haustion sooner the less rich it is in the mineral ingredients necessary as food for plants. But we can restore soil to its original state of fertility by bringing it back to its former composition, i.e. by restoring to it the constituents removed by the various crops of plants. A fertile soil must con tain in sufficient quantity, and in a form adapted for assimilation, all the inorganic materials indis pensable for the growth of plants. It is obvious, he remarks, that we furnish the conditions essential to the formation of starch or of sugar, when we supply to the plants their necessary constituents, i.e. such as we find always present in them. The sap of such plants as are rich in sugar or in starch contains much potash and soda, or alkaline earth. As experience proves that a deficiency of alkalies causes a deficient formation of woody fibre, sugar, and starch, and that, on the contrary, a luxuriant growth is the conse quence of their abundant supply, it is obvious that the object of culture, viz. a maximum of crops, cannot be obtained unless the alkalies (necessary for the transformation of the carbonic acid into starch or sugar) be supplied in abundant quantity, and in a form fit for assimilation by plants. In fact, the principal object of scientific agriculture is to restore to land, in whatever way the restoration may be most convenient, the sub stances removed from it, and which the atmosphere cannot yield. Professor .Johnston says lime is indispensable to, the every- 1000 lbs. of fertile soil contains 56 lbs. of lime ; -every 1000 lbs. of less 18 lbs. ; and of the barren soil, only 4 lbs. :Vegetable- matter, i.e., woody fibre, in the state technically called 'humus, according to Liebig., does not afford nourishment to plants in the form in which We see it in soils,-being,- in fact, very nearly insoluble, and therefore incapable of being taken up by the roots, which cannot take up any solid matter, but only as the carbon. A mixture of two or three earths, such as lime, silica, and alumina, is better fitted to absorb moisture and gaseous matter than either of the earths taken singly.