X. MANURES (cont.)

Rape Cake, etc.; Blood, etc.

Rape Cake, etc.

Rape-cake reduced to powder forms an excellent manure for wheat and other crops. It is usually applied at the rate of from four to eight cwt. per acre. The cakes resulting after oil has been expressed from camelina, hemp, and cotton seeds, and from pistachio and castor-oil nuts, from beech and other mast, all possess considerable value as manure, and were at one time available for that purpose. Most of them now command a price for cattle feeding that forbids their sue as manure unless when in a damaged state.

Blood, etc.

All parts of the carcases of animals form valuable manure, and are carefully used in that way whenever they are unfit for more important uses. The blood and other refuse from shambles and from dish-curers’ yards, when mixed with earth and decomposed, make a valuable manure, and are accessible. In London a company has been formed by whom, the blood from the shambles is purchased, and employed instead of water preparing super-phosphate of lime, which, when thus manufactured, contains an amount of ammonia which adds considerably to its efficacy as a manure. In Australia and South America it has long been the practice to slaughter immense numbers of sheep and cattle for the sake of their hides and fallows only, there being no market for them as beef and mutton. To obtain the whole tallow the carcases are subjected to a process of boiling by steam and afterwards to pressure, and are then thrown aside in great piles, This dried residuum is afterwards used as fuel in the furnaces of the steaming apparatus, and the resulting ashes constitute the bones-ash of commerce, which is now an important raw material in our manure factories.

After many abortive attempts to conveys Australian beef and mutton to the British market, the difficulty has at last been overcome by enclosing the meat in a parboiled state in tin cases, hermetically sealed. This has already grown to a large trade, with every likelihood of its increasing rapidly. As the meat in these cases is sent free from bone, a plan has been found for rendering the bones also profitable article of export. For this purpose they are crushed into compact cakes 6 inches squire by 3 inches thick, in which form they can be stowed in comparatively small space.

The refuse from glue-works; the blubber and dreg from fish-oil; animal charcoal that has been used in the process of sugar-refining; the shavings and fillings of horn and bones from various manufacturer, and woolen rags, are all made available for manure.






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