142 BOARD OF. AGRICULTURE. 



everything on the farm that can be used for bedding, — such 

 as potato-vines, leaves, etc., — and it is astonishing what a mass 

 of manure can be made in this way. Then we save all the 

 droppings of the horse-stable, and use it for bedding the pigs. 

 I need hardly say that horse-droppings, saturated with pig- 

 urine, make a powerful manure. We cut all our straw and 

 corn-stalks into chaff, and we find that this cut straw makes 

 far better bedding than long straw. It absorbs more liquid, 

 and the manure is more easily handled. 



There is great improvement yet to be made in the manage- 

 ment of barn-yard manure. The fact recently brought out by 

 the experiments of Lawes & Gilbert, that a pound of nitrogen, 

 in the form of ammonia or nitric acid, has a far greater effect 

 on the crops than a pound of nitrogen in barn-yard manure, 

 shows that we should aim to ferment our manure before using 

 it. Mr. Lawes has grown wheat every year on his experi- 

 mental wheat-field for thirty years. One plot has received 

 fourteen tons of barn-yard manure per acre every year, and 

 yet the produce from this plot is no larger, and frequently 

 not so large, as from the plots receiving a few hundred pounds 

 of artificial manures containing far less nitrogen, phosphoric 

 acid, potash and other elements of plant-food. Since 1852 

 some of the plots have received the same manure, year after 

 year. During nineteen years the average yield on these plots 

 was as follows : — 



Wheat per acre. Straw per acre. 



Plot 5. — Mixed mineral manure alone, . 17 bush. 15 cwt. 

 " 6. — Mixed mineral manure and 200 



lbs. ammoniacal salts, . . 27 " 25 " 



" 7. — Mixed mineral manure and 400 



lbs. ammonaical salts, . . 36 " 36 " 



" 9. — Mixed mineral manure and 550 



lbs. nitrate of soda, . . 37 " 41 " 



" 2.— 14 tons farm-yard dung, . . 36 " 34 " 



The fourteen tons of farm-yard manure contained about 

 eight thousand five hundred and forty pounds organic matter, 

 eight hundred and sixty-eight pounds mineral matter, and 

 two hundred pounds nitrogen. The four hundred pounds of 

 ammoniacal salts and the five hundred and fifty pounds nitrate 



