l<io. 4.] COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 45 



animal — i. e. the feces; second, the water excreted by the 

 kidneys, containing in sohition the end products of the de- 

 composition of the nitrogenous part of the food that lias 

 already l)een assimilated by the animal — the urea and hip- 

 puric acid — together with nearly all the alkalies and small 

 quantities of phosphoric acid and lime. This second excre- 

 tion we call the urine. In addition to the feces and urine, 

 stable manure contains, as we all know, straw, sawdust or 

 whatever coarse materials are used' as absorbents. To re- 

 capitulate : The feces, or solid part of the manure, is that 

 part of the food fed that the animal cannot digest and assim- 

 ilate, and contains one-half of the total nitrogen and three- 

 quarters of the phosphoric acid, lime and magnesia excreted. 

 The liquid portion, or urine, contains the other half of the 

 nitrogen and nearly all the potash and soda, and about one- 

 quarter of the phosphoric acid excreted. 



One ton of average stal^le manure that is so protected as 

 to contain nearly all of the urine has the following percentage 

 composition : — 



Per cent. 



Water, 70.00 



Nitrogen, . • .60 



Potassium oxide, .50 



Phosphoric acid, .30 



Now, upon the quality of the food fed depends the quality 

 •of the manure produced. If we feed rich nitrogenous foods 

 that contain also considerable quantities of phosphoric acid 

 and potash, such as cotton-seed meal and linseed meal, we 

 :shall produce a manure correspondingly rich in these ingre- 

 dients. Remember that of the total nitrogen, phosphoric 

 acid and potash consumed in the food, 80 to 90 per cent of 

 it is again recovered in the manure. With such a large 

 amount of these several ingredients thus recovered it must 

 be clear that it would be more economical to turn our hay, 

 corn and other articles of a similar nature into milk and but- 

 ter and thus retain upon the farm the large quantities of the 

 fertilizing ingredients they have taken from the soil, rather 

 than to dispose of them direct. In other words, I mean that 

 the mixed system of farming must still continue to be the 

 .system pursued by the larger pait of our Massachusetts 



