WOOLLEN RAGS, ETC.
Woollen rags, hair, waste of woollen factories, etc., contain both nitrogen and phosphate of lime; and, like all other matters containing these ingredients, are excellent manures, but must be used in such a way as to prevent the escape of their fertilizing gases. They decompose slowly, and are therefore considered a lasting manure. Like all lasting manures, however, they are slow in their effects, and the most advantageous way to use them is to compost them with stable manure, or with some other rapidly fermenting substance, which will hasten their decomposition and render them sooner available.
Rags, hair, etc., thus treated, will in a short time be reduced to such a condition that they may be immediately used by plants instead of lying in the soil to be slowly taken up. It is better in all cases to have manures act quickly and give an immediate return for their cost, than to lie for a long time in the soil before their influence is felt.
What is their value compared with that of farm-yard manure?
How should old leather be treated?
Describe the manurial properties of tanners' refuse.
How should they be treated?
Are horn piths, etc. valuable?
A pound of woollen rags is worth, as a manure, twice as much as is paid for good linen shreds for paper making; still, while the latter are always preserved, the former are thrown away, although considered by good judges to be worth forty times as much as barn-yard manure.
Old leather should not be thrown away. It decomposes very slowly, and consequently is of but a little value; but, if put at the roots of young trees, it will in time produce appreciable effects.