WOOD ASHES FOR MANURE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3183, 10 September 1881, Page 3

WOOD ASHES FOR MANURE.

It is well for the selector who has to clear his land to know the value of the wood ashes as a fertiliser, so that he may thereby be induced to utilze it on his own cultivation. In America it is very largely used, and as a well-known good fertilizer has taken its place in the market at good value—something like eighteen pence per bushel. They market in that country, leached and unleached ashes, but the difference in value between the two is very considerable. The leached ashes are those which have been •exposed to the action of rain, and much of the best of the fertilising materials it originally contained washed away thereby. The unleached are highly charged with potash and contain also a good percentage of phosphoros and it is to the presence of these twowell known fertilisers that its value as a manure may be distinctly traced. Potash is easily carried out of ashes by water, and it is found that unleached ashes therefore are many times richer in potash than the leached article. But wood ashes alone are good as a manure for a limited variety of crops. The grower of maize, for instance, would most likely be very much, disappointed at the result of its application to that crop, for the corn requires some fertiliser containing nitrogenous -compounds, English potatoes, and also sweet potatoes, are decidedly benefited by its application, and so are turnips, mangold, wurtzel and beets. Onions, like maize, re. quire nitrogen, and the same may be said of cabbage and cauliflower, so that wood ashes must not be regarded as a-good-all round manure, but as a special one. Its best value, is realised, however, as v fertiliser for fruit treee, and if the selector ha 3an orchard, vineyards, or orangery, that he takes pride in, and wishes to see the trees in it luxuriate, let him treat it liberally with wood ashos, and he will not be disappointed. Chemistry says that the grape vine is a potash plant— that is one requiring a larger percentage of potash to grow, and do better than many others. So then the vineyard especially would bo benefited by the application of wood ashes.

In burning off timber much of the refuse will consiet of charcoal, and chemical agriculturists affirm unhesitatingly that charcoftlifl entirely wanting in fertilising ele> msntj, Taking this fop kQYwre,

there are many soils which would bo improved considerably by the application of charcoiil,"but its action would bo of a mechanical nature. For a vineyard for example, it would be of some service in improving the texture of the hind, and consequently for application thereto, need not bo separated from the more valuable ashes. For many other crops the charcoal is best removed before the ashes are applied. In this matter so much depends upon the nature of the soil that anything written thereon must still be used with judgment and discretion. Loamy soils and strong clayey soils are much benefitted by wood ashes, sand also, but looses it again rapidly. The stronger quality of soils it is that the charcoal will benefit most opon free soils do not require it. From what has already been said it will be seen that all care should be taken to collect the ashes before their chief value has been washed away by rain. The present time, when dry weather is generally prevalent, is best for burning off timber and collecting ashes, and it may then be either stored aw.ay carefully in a dry shed, or put at once on the land for which it is intended, and if immediately afterwards it is lightly turned under so much the better. But little if any loss of fertility is sustained by the exposure of ashes to the air, for the fertilisers contained therein are not volatile, the object attained by turning it quickly under the soil chiefly consists in more quickly incorporating it with the soil and making it thereby more immediately available for the plants.