Poultry Manure
Categories:
Soils, Fertilizers and Irrigation
Give directions for using chicken manure. For use of young trees, is
there any difference in treatment of deciduous and citrus trees? For use
in the vegetable garden and the flower garden, what should be mixed with
it and in what proportions? So many people say poultry manure is so
strong, I am afraid to use it.
It is a fact that poultry manure, free from earth, contains even as high
as four times as much
plant food as ordinary stable manure. It is,
therefore, to be used with proportional care, so that the plants shall
not receive too much, and particularly so that there may not be too much
collected in one place. Probably the best way to guard against this is
to thoroughly mix the manure with three or four times its bulk of
ordinary garden soil and then use this mixture at about the same rate
you would stable manure. If you do not desire to go to all this trouble,
make an even scattering of the manure and work it into the soil. There
is no reason to fear the material; simply guard against the unwise use
of it. It is good for all the plants which you mention; in fact, for any
plant grown, provided it is sparingly and evenly distributed.
It should be pulverized so that there shall not be lumps and masses in
the same place for fear of root injury. Of course, the strength depends
upon how much earth is gathered up with the manure. Sometimes there is
so much waste material that it can be handled just as ordinary farm
manure is.
We should not use over 20 pounds of clean droppings to a young tree and
should mix it with the soil for a considerable distance around the tree.
Old bearing trees might stand two or three tons to the acre if
distributed all over the ground. The material contains everything that
is necessary for the growth of the tree and formation of the fruit.