132 Our Farming. 



then there is danger of waste by washing on my farm. I have 

 tried it. After we get our wheat in the barn we have the time. 

 It is warm weather, but the loading is done out of the sun and in 

 the wind, and the horses do the spreading. But some one may 

 say, Will there not be waste, spreading manure right in midsum- 

 mer to dry up ? Yes, waste of water, but practically nothing 

 else. You can evaporate water out of the manure, but it cannot 

 take the potash with it any more than it can when it evaporates 

 out of your soil, or out of the potash kettle, where the lye is 

 boiled down. You can no more evaporate phosphoric acid than 

 you can maple sugar when you boil down the sap. But how 

 about the nitrogen ? Well, you need not worry about the loss of 

 nitrogen by evaporation, when this valuable ingredient is in the 

 form of nitrogen. When it has changed into the more volatile 

 form of ammonia, it would escape if spread on the surface of the 

 ground in hot weather, certainly. If you should take manure out 

 from a large pile where it was heating considerably, and nitrogen 

 had thus become changed to ammonia, you would waste this 

 ammonia by spreading. But there are several points to take into 

 account. Very likely you would waste less than if you left the 

 pile to go on heating, for this gas will pass off from the pile into 

 the air, unless there is water or land plaster or earth or some- 

 something to absorb it and hold it. When spread thinly, heat- 

 ing and further formation of ammonia practically ceases. 

 Again, a little ammonia makes a great smell. It is strong. In 

 drawing out from a hot pile you would not waste a great deal. 

 But we do not draw out from a pile, and do not waste practi- 

 cally any. Our manure is kept from heating by spreading, moist- 

 ening if needed, and packing, and land plaster is used. I have 

 never been able to detect any ammonia escaping from it. There 

 is precious little there. " But how can you rot your manure and 

 not have it heat more ? " We do not want to rot it, but to keep 

 it as fresh and dormant as possible until the best time for us to 

 use it. I would put it all, fresh from the stable, on the young 

 clover, if I could have it all fresh just when I want it. I do not 

 expect it to gain anything by keeping, and it is a hard matter to 

 prevent loss. I would not have it rotted if I could without loss. 

 I think I can do better. Having shown you that there is no loss 

 from spreading on surface in clover field by evaporation, let me 

 go a step further and say I believe there is a decided gain. In the 

 previous chapter we talked over the mulching value of clover. . Now 

 can you not see that coarse manure, spread on the surface, to lie 

 there and decay, will help shade the surface, the same as the 

 clover does ? If it does, it helps increase fertility. The rains will 

 carry the valuable parts of manure down, and clover roots will 

 take good care of them ; meanwhile the refuse is shading the sur- 

 face and helping some, helping the young clover to get started, 

 for mulching between young plants that are feeble helps greatly, 



