70 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



fresh manure kept ont of doors that in heap suffered least. The 

 heap that was rotted in the start sutfered more than the fresh. It is 

 to be noticed that the manure kept under a shed lost considerable in 

 weight, but the loss was largely in water which dried out, and in 

 carbonic acid which resulted from the combustion going on in the 

 heap. A little calculation shows that there was more soluble nitro- 

 gen in the covered pile at the end of the 3'ear than at the beginning, 

 while in all the other samples of manure there was considerable 

 loss of valable material. The following table may be interesting in 

 showing the relative actual loss of organic material and nitrogen by 

 keeping mamire under various conditions, also in giving a hint as to 

 whether there is a loss in fermenting manure under favorable condi- 

 tions. If any valuable ingredient would be lost from manure 

 decomposing under a shed, it would be niti-ogen. 



Are not these figures sufficiently striking to induce a careless 

 farmer to take some pains to prevent loss from his manure heaps? 

 Onl}' six per cent, of nitrogen lost when the manure was covered, 

 and fifty-nine per cent, when it was spread out and allowed to leach ! 

 Even when in a pile out of doors thirty per cent, nearl}' of the 

 nitrogen was lost. There is no reason to doubt but that a corres- 

 ponding loss occurred with the valuable mineral ingredients from the 

 careless management. 



Again, there is often a careless waste of the urine. I have seen 

 lots of barns where the floor of tlie tie-up was either full of cracks, 

 or else had holes bored in it to allow the escape of the liquids, while 

 the solid excrements were thrown out of a window into the open 

 yard. In that way the urine was almost entirely lost, unless very 

 large quantities of absorbents were used. 



Now, the liquid excrements arc valuable. We have seen that all 

 . the nitrogen compounds which pass through the processes of diges- 



