MANURES 113 



To minimise the chances of obtaining deficient weight, the 

 consumer should, wherever possible, obtain his manure from a 

 station where a truck weighbridge is in use : it will then be 

 weighed after being loaded into the truck, and a falsification of 

 weight can only occur through the improbable contingency of 

 fraud on the part of the railway employees. Another pre- 

 caution is to have the manure sent " carriage forward," not 

 " carriage paid." Should any dispute arise, the Board of Trade 

 have no power to intervene in any contract between the sender 

 and receiver of the manure : they can only do so where a public 

 carrying company is concerned, i. e. their power is confined to 

 inquiring as to the correctness of the freight charges, and if the 

 receiver is not directly responsible for these, he has no locus 

 standi in the matter. 



To investigate the question, two trucks of manure, which was 

 said to be fresh, but which had evidently already been heated, 

 were carefully weighed in London, despatched on a journey of 

 60 miles, and then returned to London for re-weighing. They 

 were finally sent a second time to their destination, and the 

 contents weighed out into carts. In one truck the manure had 

 been piled up, in the other it had not been piled, in order that 

 evidence as to mechanical loss, as well as loss by evaporation, 

 might be obtained. The total loss during the journey of 

 120 miles was i\ per cent, from the piled truck, and i J per cent, 

 from the non-piled one, showing a loss of I per cent, from 

 mechanical causes where the trucks are piled, and if per cent, 

 from evaporation. The journey occupied nearly four days, and 

 the daily loss by evaporation was, therefore, 0*4 per cent. This 

 took place in January, when an east wind was blowing, and the 

 weather was dry. 



At the same time further evidence was obtained by keeping 

 manure in carts in an open shed during the months of November 

 till February. In one case the manure was, to start with, quite 

 fresh from the stables, and daily observations of the weight, 

 the temperature and humidity of the air, and the mean tempera- 

 ture of the manure were taken. The daily loss of weight amounted 

 to 2 '73 per cent, during the first seven days while heating was 

 occurring, it then fell to 0*53 per cent, and remained at this 

 value for the next three or four weeks. This compares well with 

 the daily loss of 0*4 per cent, observed in the experiments with 

 trucks, the evaporation from the latter being necessarily smaller, 

 owing to the smaller proportion borne by the exposed surface 

 to the total weight. 



