68 Effective Farming 



ders the stored-up plant-food of the soil more readily available 

 and adds humus and bacteria to the land. Beneficial effects 

 of farm manure are shown in Fig. 23, which is a picture of ex- 

 perimental plots at the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station. 

 The plot at the right had an application of two and one-half 



FIG. 23. Beneficial effect of barnyard manure., a, no barnyard manure 

 applied ; 6, barnyard manure applied at the rate of 1\ tons to the acre. 



tons of manure to the acre and the one at the left had no ma- 

 nure. Notice the difference in the growth of the corn in the 

 two plots. 



30. Kinds of farm manure. Manure from horses, cattle, 

 sheep, swine, and poultry are the chief kinds produced on the 

 farm. As a rule, however, the bulk of the manure that is 

 returned to the soil is from cattle and horses. This is because 

 it is somewhat easier to find ways of storing these voidings 

 than those of the other classes of farm animals and also be- 

 cause horses and cattle consume most of the grain and rough- 

 age of the average farm. 



Horse manure is uniform in character ; the dung is dry and 

 contains a large proportion of crude fiber. The manure fer- 

 ments easily, which means excessive loss of nitrogen. Horse 

 manure also loses much fertility by reason of firefanging, a 



