Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1876-06-24
GRANGER'S DEPARTMENT.
VALUE OF SHEEP FOR ENRICH
ING LAND.

Some fifty years ago Anderson said:
One thousand sheep folded on an acre
Of ground one day, would manure it
sniff GENTLY to feed one thousand and
one sheep; so that, by this process, land
which, the first year, can feed only one
thousand sheep, may, the next year, as
a result of their own droppings, feed
thirteen hundred and sixty-five.
Spreugel allowed that the manure of
fourteen hundred sheep, tor one day,
is equally to manuring highly one acre
of land, which is about four sheep per
year. Mech, a still more recent au-
thority, estimates that fifteen hundred
sheep, folded on an acre of land for
twenty -four hours, or one hundred sheep
for fifteen days, would manure the land
sufficiently to carry it through four
wears rotation. In the United States,
much less attention has been paid to
this item of profit to be derived from
the flock. Only upon the poorer lands,
and then only from the exceptionally
few close observing and calculating
men, do We meet with any notice OF 1t
at all. Not so in England aud France,
where the necessities imposed by densi-
" of population, and consequent en-
HANGED value of land, compel recogni-
ton of every minutia of profit by the
cultiyator of the soil There the feed
inc and grazing of sheep enters into the
system of rotation with invarlable regu-
larity. Without the sheep of England
today her agriculture would be fail
ure. Their value to English agriculture
is to be found in their manure. Though
not of themselves profitable, they make
it possible for other branches ofagrlcul-
tural industry to become so. Professor
Coleman, of the Agricultural College at
Cirencester, once said:
1t is not difficult to show that sheep
alone, apart from their influence on the
corn crops, will not pay living proht
after all the expenses OF growing the
crops are considered.
NJ Theirs says:
The agricultural industry of France
cannot dispense with sheep.
Science has lately made the gum
washed from fleeces at the factories
contribute to the fertilization of soils.
Mr.. HAYES tells us that the French
chemists, NM Maumone and Rogelet,
have established very recently at the
Treat seats Of the wooden manufacture
in France, as at Rheims and Elbeut,
factories for putting the new industry
which they have created into practical
operation. They induce the WOODEN
manufactures to preserve and sell TO
them the solutions of yOlk obtained by
the washing OF the raw fleeces in cold
water, and pay such price as ehcour-
ares the manufactures to wash their
wool methodically, 50 as 10 enrich the
same water with the yolk of number
OF feeces These scounEgs the chemists
carry to their factory and there boil them
down to a dry, carbonaceous resldnum.
The alkaline salts remains IN the char-
red residuum, and are extracted 10y
liyiyiation with water. The most i'm
nortant of the alkalies obtained Is
notash. which is recovered in state OF
great purity. 1t is computed that II
the fleeces of all the sheep OF France,
estimated at 47,00n,0OO, were subjected
10 the new treatment, France would
derive from this source alone all the
potash she requires in the arts; enough
TO make about 10000 tons of commerci-
nj carbonate of potash, convertible INTO
1880 tons of saltpeter, which would
charge $4,000 cartridges,-Nai'onal
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