FOR BETTER CliOTS 23 



heavy rains there is little loss if the manure is allowed to accumu- 

 late during such weather in a small, uncovered feed lot, pro- 

 vided it is hauled out and spread upon the land in the early 

 spring. Manure may he allowed to acL-umulate without much 

 loss in deep stalls for several weeks if plenty of ahsorhent hed- 

 ding is used, and then it may he hauled from the stall directly 

 to the field and spread. 



It should be the rule never to handle manure more than 

 once. When taken from the stable or feeding shed it should be 

 at once loaded onto the spreader and hauled to the field. If 

 manure is produced at the rate of two loads or more a week, the 

 convenience and importance of taking this manure directly 

 from the stable and spreading it at once upon the field will cer- 

 tainly justify providing a manure spreader or special wagon to 

 be used solely for this purpose. 



This field requires a heavy application of manure 



lucreasing the Value of Farm Manure — While ordinarv 

 fresh farm manure is w^orth $2 a ton for use on ordinary soils, its 

 value can easily be increased to $3 a ton net, by replacing in 

 liberal amounts of low-priced, very finely ground, natural rock 

 phosphate, the element phosphorus, which the animals have 

 extracted from the feed and used in making bone, thus leaving 

 the manure poor in phosphorus as compared with the crops 

 grown and fed. 



It should be remembered that practically all potassium con- 

 tained in the feed is returned in the liquid and solid excrements 

 and that the nitrogen, which is in part retained by the animal 

 and in part returned in the manure, can be fully maintained by 

 supplementing the farm manure with clover grown in the crop 

 rotations and plowed under. 



By far the most complete and valuable work ever reported 

 upon the subject of increasing the value of farm manure by the 

 addition of natural rock phosphate has been done by the Ohio 

 agricultural experiment station under the direction of Professor 



