280 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



Letting this point pass, however, and assuming that we have had 

 a ton of manure to haul out of the barnyard for every ton thrown 

 into it, we find that in the case of the untreated manures we have 

 lost six dollars and a half per acre by throwing the manure into the 

 barnyard, instead of hauling it directly to the field, while with the 

 treated manures the loss has been still greater than this. 



Each of the materials used in treating the manure has greatly 

 increased its effectiveness, but tlie increase for the phosphatic ma- 

 terials has been so much greater than that for the gypsum or kainit, 

 that it has been relatively unprofitable to use these; and as between 

 the two carriers of phosphorus, the acid phosphate, though costing 

 much more than the floats, and carrying only half as much phos- 

 phorus, has been the more profitable material to use. This is prob- 

 ably due to the action of the sulphuric acid in the acid phosphate 

 in conserving the ammonia of the manure. This test is being con- 

 ducted on a very acid soil, one on which it has become absolutely 

 necessarj'^ to apply lime in order to grow clover, and although the 

 use of acid phosphate undoubtedly increases the acidity of such a 

 soil, yet since we must use lime anyhow, the additional quantity 

 of lime required to neutralize the acid phosphate is so small that 

 it becomes a negligible matter. 



As an illustration of the ease with which the exposed heap may 

 be deprived of its value, I would recall to the memory of the older 

 members of my audience the method by which potash was obtained 

 for soap making in the pioneer days when wood was a more common 

 fuel than at present: The ashes were placed in a V-shaped hopper, 

 the point resting in a trough — often one cut in a log — and water 

 was poured on top as long as the brown stream flowing from the bot- 

 tom would float an egg, each bucketful of clear water taking the 

 place of a bucketful of lye; but when the work was done the ashes, 

 though now worthless as a source of potash, were heavier than at 

 the start. But it is easier to leach the potash out of the manure 

 heap than out of the ash hopper, for in the manure heap a con- 

 siderable portion of it is already in solution, only waiting to be 

 displaced by rain. 



A common mistake in the use of manure has been the application 

 of too large doses. This point is brought out by the experiments 

 at your State College Experiment Station, in which manure has 

 been applied twice during each rotation at the rate of six, eight and 

 ten tons-per acre for each application to different plots, with the 

 result that the six-ton dressing has produced increase during the 

 first 20 years of the test to the value of $20.54, the eight-ton to that 

 of |21.0*8, and the ten-ton to that of |22.28, using the same prices 

 for produce employed in computing Table 2. In a similar experi- 

 ment at the Ohio station manure has been used twice during each 

 rotation at the rates of four and eight tons, and has produced in- 

 crease to the average value of |21.00 per acre for the 4-ton applica- 

 tion, or $2.62 per ton of manure, and of |33.15 for the 8-ton dressing, 

 or of $2.07 per ton of manure. While the soil at the Ohio station 

 has been more responsive to manuring than that at State College, 

 yet the same general rule holds good, that the larger applications 

 are relatively less effective than smaller ones. 



In the ripening of our cereal crops about three-fourths of the 

 phosphorns paeses into the grain, while about three-faarths of the 



