The Chinese are successful gardeners, and use the night-soil largely diluted without decomposing it. In India, cattle manure from the denudation of forests is too often made into fuel. The scanty manure heaps, with the exception of those rare instances where sheep can be hired to fold on the land, form the main resource of the country, and they consist almost entirely of the dung of lean cattle, and of the ashes of that which has been used as fuel ; and the soil never can be kept in any other than in a very low and exhausted con dition. It is robbed of its vegetable matter, because this is wanted to feed cattle, and, from the absence of trees, there is no means of procuring leaf manure. It is deprived of its phosphate of lime, which is very partially replaced, and of its potash, which can -hardly be said to be replaced at all. A Madura native district officer, writing of the subject, says: ' I have not known a case in which, even with the greatest care, a ryot would have been able to secure, by collecting the dung of his own cattle, sweepings, etc., of his house, a quantity of manure sufficient for his field ; nor can any be purchased at any reasonable price, since every one is careful to collect as much manure as he can.' In Kurnool, in dry cultivation, manure is never used, as it is t1,11 required for the irrigated lands. No village in the Panjab has enough manure for more than its best lands. But in instances the cultivator has not, in con sequence .of the scarceness of pasture, even full command of his paltry manurial resources. In parts of the country the cattle are brought home every night to the sheds, but the bulk of the cattle have to be driven Off to distant pastures, and do not return till the end of January, or early in February. In Bengal, even with such an exhausting crop as jute, no manure in many instances is used.
The native cultivators at Farrakhabad for ages the night-soil for manure. As much as Rs. 15,000 to 11s. 20,000 are paid there by the cultivators to the sweepers, and their lands yield a triple crop of maize, potatoes, and tobacco. At Dinapur, a cultivator who used some poudrette for his field was, for so doing, fined five rupees by his caste men. At Farrakhabad, careful inquiry showed that a household of five persons furnish enough manure to fertilize 12-20ths of a bigha ; and a plough with its usual complement of seven head of cattle did the like for one bights and 12-20ths of land.
In no country in the world is the necessity for manuring the land more -appreciated than in India, and in few is the supply more wasted. It is carelessly collected and stored, and for the eight dry months of tlie year the sweepings of the cow-house are used as fuel. The
bones of dead animals are lost.
The practice'' of sowing the Bunn plant for the purpose. Ofn green manure proVes that the natives appreciate the effect- of-Manures decomposing in the 41Oir "The use of liquid .manure, specially carted for the purpose of 'is common in some parts of the country. The high manurial value of indigo water is well known, and largely used wherever available. The sonai or jute water, in which jute has been steeped, is equally valuable. Nany of the plants, Janjli, growing in jhils, tanks, and other standing water, are useful. Water impregnated with the decomposed plants of the genera Cemtophyllum verticillatum, Ilydrilla verticillata, Vallisneria, Lemnia, Pistia, Maraillea quadrifolia, Azolla bin nata, Salvinia verticillata, and Salvinia cucullata, may be applied with great advantage to the soil. The species of Chara (C. vulgaris) in Europe. 1000 lbs. of green chars were found to consist of 158 lbs. of carbonate of lime, mostly deposited on the plant itself, 8 lbs. of chlorine, 12 lbs. of soda, and 590 lbs. of water. Nitrate of soda and super phosphates (viz. dissolved bones, bone-ash, and rock phosphate), with potash, magnesia, etc., are the fertilizers of the day.
The Calotropis gigantea is valued as a manure, and is ploughed into the ground, as also are the leaves of the cassia. In Afghanistan the dung of camels is carefully avoided, from a belief that it impregnates the soil with saltpetre.
In Rangpur, refuse indigo weed, which is thrown out of the vats, is used either fresh or after rotting like dung. Water from indigo vats is also used on poor lands. Oil-cake from mustard seed is applied both before and after sowing or planting in the cultivation of sugar-cane, wheat, barley, oil-seeds, etc. Oil-mice soaked in water and applied to the sugar-cane tops previous to planting prevents white ants' attacks. Weeds, straw, husks are burnt and strewed on the field. But throughout India, the country is for the most part destitute of wood, and firewood, having to be brought from great distances, is so scarce and dear that dried cattle dung is the usual fuel; the grass is short and scanty; the straw of the various crops is entirely consumed by cattle, which, with the exception of the finer kinds of draught breeds, are necessarily lean ; the proportion of cattle, too, to the cultivated area is small, and as the food is extremely deficient, the manure is not only poor in quality, but small in quantity.—Ben. As. Soc. Journ., April 1848 ; p. 311.