E. J. Russell and E. H. Richards 503 



5. It must not be allowed to become dry (noted by Varro, very 

 old). 



6. In practice the best way of securing all these conditions is to 

 leave the manure under the animals, kept in a covered yard or box, 

 until it is wanted for the field, and then to draw it out and apply it 

 without delay. 



The application of these results is obviously easy in the case of 

 bullocks tied up to be fatted, and in some cases the old deep stall was 

 revived for holding the bullocks, — an adaptation of the plan used in 

 Germany from mediaeval times, but discarded on the introduction of the 

 succulent fodder crops because the volume of dung and urine became 

 too great to be manageable in the stall as originally made. 



No advance of any consequence has been made in the best practice 

 since these times; there has, however, been considerable advance on 

 the scientific side. 



Boussingault's important generalisation as to the relation of manure 

 to food has formed the basis of most of the work. Physiologists proved 

 that no nitrogen was exhaled by the animal, and Lawes and Gilbert's 

 analyses showed how much was "fixed" in the flesh; it was, therefore, 

 a simple matter to determine how much of the nitrogen of the food 

 ought to be in the manure. Further, the digestibility methods of the 

 physiologists made it possible to ascertain the distribution of the 

 various fertilising constituents, — the nitrogen, phosphoric acid, potash, 

 etc., — of the food between the urine and the faeces; and experiment 

 soon showed that the material digested and excreted in the urine had 

 a higher fertilising value than the undigested material of the faeces. 



The first application of these principles to the manure heap was 

 made by Lawes and Gilbert from 1854 onwards^ ; and had to do with 

 the residual manurial value of various feeding stuffs. Henneberg at 

 Weende'^ followed up the work and it was developed in Germany 

 by Maercker (who began at Weende) and Schneidewind^ in 1898. 

 These investigations showed that the nitrogen actually present in 

 the manure was never equal to the calculated amount; there was 

 always a loss, even when precautions were taken to prevent loss 

 by drainage. The German Agricultural Society realised the practical 

 significance of this result, and in 1896 urged the Agricultural 



1 Their last paper on the subject summarises their work and that of the other inves- 

 tigators up to that time. Journ. Roy. Agric. Soc. 1895, pp. 47-146. 



2 Beitrdge zur Begrundung einer rationellen Futterung der Wiederkduer, Heft 1, 1860. 

 8 Maercker and Schneidewind, Landw. Jahrhucher, 1898, 27, 215-40 



