146 Commercial Gardening 



3. COMPLETE MANURES 



Farmyard Manure or Dung". This name is applied to solid and 

 liquid excreta from animals, together with the litter that has been used 

 for bedding down. Wheat straw is generally used for litter, but peat- 

 moss litter has of late years become a rival for bedding in stables. Other 

 materials, such as bracken, shavings, spoiled hay, &c., are used also; but 

 whatever material is used it becomes farmyard manure when it becomes 

 too wet with urine and too foul with droppings to be used any longer 

 for bedding. It is then taken outside and stacked in heaps. The urine 

 of animals being usually richer in nitrates, phosphates, and potash than 

 the droppings, every care should be taken to preserve it, not only for its 

 intrinsic value as a fertilizer, but because it is useful for keeping the 

 litter in such a state of dampness that it will not burn or turn mouldy. 

 Wheat straw will absorb about three times its own weight of liquid, and 

 peat-moss litter about eight times its own weight. It has been estimated 

 that a horse affords 1000 Ib. of urine annually containing 89 Ib. of solid 

 matter, and a cow 13,000 Ib. of urine containing 1023 Ib. of solid matter. 

 About 67 Ib. of solid matter is contained in 1000 Ib. of human urine; 21 Ib. 

 in 1000 Ib. of pig urine, and 30 Ib. of solid matter in 1000 Ib. of sheep 

 urine. 



The quantity and quality of the excreta vary according to the kind 

 of animal, its age, and the food it eats. The droppings from cows and 

 pigs contain more liquid than those from horses and sheep. Hence the 

 "sloppy" manure from pigs and cows is termed cold, and is useful for 

 "hot" gravelly or sandy soils. Horse and sheep manure, however, is 

 known as hot, and is better applied to heavy or tenacious soils. 



It has been estimated by a German scientist that a horse will excrete 

 28 Ib., a cow 73 Ib., a sheep 3'8 Ib., and a pig 8'3 Ib. per day, and that 

 these excreta mixed with straw litter will yield 33 Ib., 81 Ib., 4'4 Ib., and 

 12'3 Ib. of manure per day from each animal respectively. This estimate 

 is presumably for fully grown animals in a normal state of health. 



Storing" Farmyard Manure. In most cases, perhaps, farmyard 

 manure is stacked or thrown loosely in heaps and left exposed to the 

 weather. Unless frequently turned over and kept moistened with water 

 or urine the manure heap will gradually allow the best part of its fertiliz- 

 ing ingredients, namely, the ammonia gas, to vanish into the air, a mis- 

 fortune readily recognized by the smell given off. Or the heavy rains 

 wash out all the soluble salts into the drains, where they are lost. The 

 result often is that the "life" of the manure has departed, and nothing 

 is left but the dead carcass. To avoid these calamities it is therefore 

 best to have the manure under cover if possible, and placed on concrete 

 bottoms, so that any liquid oozing out may be afterwards collected and 

 thrown over the heap. If a piece of moistened red litmus paper be placed 

 near a steaming manure heap it will turn blue] and a glass rod dipped in 



