185Y.] Stall Manure and Straw. 179 



thereby save expense in transportation, as lie would employ a dryer 

 manure, and would possess in a load which had lost half its weight 

 by desiccation the same fertilizing power that is contained in two 

 equal loads of fresh manure. The true state of matters is, however, 

 wholly diiferent. 



Of the proximate constituents of plants two leading classes are 

 distinguished, the combustible (organic,) and incombustible (inor- 

 ganic ;) of these, the first alone are capable of fermentation and 

 putrefaction, the latter not. 



Amons orjranic substances a distinction is made between such 

 as contain, and such as do not contain, azote or nitrogen, and the 

 former must be regarded as more scarce and valuable, as well for 

 foddering animals as for manuring plants. Nor is it precisely these 

 azotized constituents that are always first changed; for they intro- 

 duce and transfer to the other ingredients the putrefactive fermenta- 

 tion, by the intervention of visible and invisible animals of all kinds 

 (infusoria, maggots, worms etc.) If by this means their nitrogen 

 finally enters into a volatile combination, in other words, into am- 

 monia, then it is evident that the farmer who carelessly abandons 

 his stall-manure to the process of putrefaction, will in the generality 

 of cases lose considerable quantities of the manuring elements it 

 contains, and of these elements, precisely those which have the high- 

 est value. With the ammonia other volatile combinations of sul- 

 phur and phosphorus (sulphureted hydrogen, etc,) are simultaneous- 

 ly generated, and likewise escape in an atrial form. They possess 

 an extremely oflFensive odor, the same as that of rotten eggs, which 

 is strong in proportion to the putrefactive fermentation. Hence, from 

 the strength of the stench emitted during the putrefaction of animal 

 manure, a tolerably accurate conclusion may be drawn with respect 

 to the loss of strength which may be feared. The maxim of the 

 peasantry, "Whatever stinks is good for manuring," is perfectly 

 true ; the more, therefore, stinking gases (containing nitrogen and 

 sulphur) and vapors escape from a dung-heap into the air, the less 

 of course can it continue to retain. 



Those parts of plants which contain little or no nitrogen (for in- 

 stance, straw, wood, sugar, starch, ) emit disagreable odor, during 

 putrefaction; this kind of change is called, by way of distinction, 

 fermentation. Animal substances are richest in nitrogen, and among 

 vegetable matter the seed ; hence the great difi^erence in the odor, 

 where potatoes, sawdust, sugar, etc., or flesh, cheese peas, etc.. 



