112 SCIENCE AND FRUIT GROWING 



Loss OF WEIGHT OF MANURE IN TRANSIT (Report XIV, 73) 



An investigation dealing with manure, but of a very different 

 character from the foregoing, was undertaken at Woburn, namely, 

 the determination of the loss in weight which is likely to occur 

 through evaporation in the case of stable manure sent by rail 

 from towns into the country. The question is one" of great 

 practical importance to the market gardener, for th& amount of 

 such manure which he has to buy is very large, and the differences 

 in the weight which he receives, and which he has to pay for, 

 often represent 25 per cent, of the total. He is practically 

 powerless to contest any assertion by the company or the con- 

 tractor, that this discrepancy is due to the natural loss of water 

 in transit. In the case of certain records of manure received at 

 a station 60 miles from London, the average deficit during 

 three years was 22 per cent., and the deficit with individual 

 trucks reached as high a value as 46 per cent. Such a loss, 

 however, was clearly not a legitimate one, for when the same 

 manure was sent from the same starting-point to the same 

 destination, but by a different railway company, the average 

 loss, during three years, was only 4J per cent. : during one year 

 when the manure was sent simultaneously by both companies, 

 the loss in one case was 31 J per cent., and in the other 4! per cent. 



Where the large loss had occurred, this loss had been deter- 

 mined by weighings made by the same carrying company at the 

 despatch and receiving stations, and, being thus excluded from 

 attributing it to any errors of weighing, they had to have recourse 

 to the plea of loss of water in transit, in spite of the fact, which 

 was duly established, that the manure in question when received 

 would not retain more than 10 per cent, of additional water. 



The consignee is at great disadvantage in contesting the 

 railway company's weighings. The contractor does not weigh 

 the manure himself, and bases his charge on the company's 

 weighings; the company, however, do not weigh it for him as 

 his agent, but for themselves, in order to determine their freight 

 charge, therefore, as regards any dispute between the consigner 

 and consignee, the company is in the position of an independent 

 third party, and their weighings would override those of the 

 consignee, even when he is in a position to weigh the manure 

 himself. If there is a cart weighbridge at the receiving station, 

 the consignee can get the company themselves to weigh it for 

 him, but that is of little avail, as he is at once met by the theory 

 of loss of water in transit. 



