NITROGEN A VALUABLE ELEMENT. 45 



the loss through seepage. An earth floor was used for one 

 lot and a cement floor for the other lot.. Manure was 

 weighed and analyzed at the beginning and end of the 

 experiments and it was found that that produced on the 

 earth floor had lost enough fertilizer through seepage 

 dining the experiments to have paid half the cost of ce- 

 menting the floor. 



Losses through weathering and leaching are also com- 

 mon and should be avoided. Experiments at the same 

 station, during 12 years, show that fresh manure produced 

 increase in crop yields over yard manure amounting to 

 about one-fourth of the total value of the manure. 



Nitrogen is manure's most valuable element measured 

 by the cost of replacing it in commercial fertilizer. It 

 heats when lying in heaps and the strong ammonia odor, 

 due to the combination of the nitrogen in the manure and 

 the hydrogen of the moisture of the heap, indicates tWat 

 in time all the nitrogen will escape in the form of am- 

 monia gas. It is said that a ton of manure contains about 

 10 pounds of nitrogen, worth $1.50 or $2.00, so that this 

 loss of nitrogen is a serious one. 



An average dairy cow of 1,000 pounds weight, properly 

 fed, will throw off $13.00 worth of nitrogen and potash 

 a year in her urine. A horse will throw off $18.00 worth. 

 Urine has a greater fertilizing value than manure, and 

 together they become ideal. 



p]very farmer can have his own manure factory by 

 keeping live stock. Naturally, the more live stock the 

 farm ^an keep, the more manure he will have for returning 

 to the soil. 



The silo here comes in as a material aid, and with its 

 adoption it is possible to keep at least twice as much live 

 stock on a given area of land. Pasturing cattle is becom- 

 ii-g too expensive a method. High priced lands can be 

 used to better advantage by growing the feeding crop and 

 siloing it, without any waste, to be preserved and fed 

 fresh and green the year around. This method, as we have 



