Poultry-manure is liable to as much injury from evaporation and leaching as is any other manure, and equal care should be taken (by the same means) to prevent such loss. Good shelter over the roosts, and daily sprinkling with prepared muck or charcoal-dust will be amply repaid by the increased value of the manure, and its better action and greater durability in the soil. The value of this manure should be taken into consideration in calculating the profit of keeping poultry (as indeed with all other stock). It has been observed by a gentleman of much experience, in poultry raising, that the yearly manure of a hundred fowls applied to previously unmanured land would produce extra corn enough to keep them for a year. This is probably a large estimate, but it serves to show that this fertilizer is very valuable, and also that poultry may be kept with great profit, if their excrements are properly secured.
The manure of pigeons has been a favorite fertilizer in some countries for more than 2000 years.
Market gardeners attach much value to rabbit-manure.
SHEEP MANURE.
What can you say of the manure of sheep?
The manure of sheep is less valuable than it would be, if so large a quantity of the nitrogen and mineral parts of the food were not employed in the formation of wool. This has a great effect on the richness of the excrements, but they are still a very good fertilizer, and should be protected from loss in the same way as stable manure.
GUANO.
Should the use of guano induce us to disregard other manures?
Where and in what manner is the best guano deposited?
Guano as a manure has become world renowned. The worn-out tobacco lands of Virginia, and other fields in many parts of the country, which seemed to have yielded to the effect of an ignorant course of cultivation, and to have sunk to their final repose, have in many cases been revived to the production of excellent crops, and have had their value multiplied many fold by the use of guano. Although an excellent manure, it should not cause us to lose sight of those valuable materials which exist on almost every farm. Every ton of guano imported into the United States is an addition to our national wealth, but every ton of stable-manure, or poultry-dung, or night soil evaporated or carried away in rivers, is equally a deduction from our riches. If the imported manure is to really benefit us, we must not allow it to occasion the neglect and consequent loss of our domestic fertilizers.