192 FARMYARD MANURE [chap. 



1009 grms. of nitrogen, and about 13 kg. of urine 

 containing 203 per cent, of nitrogen, equal to 265- 5 

 grms. of nitrogen. The ox was putting on weight, and 

 retained from the food 714-5 grms. of carbon and 22-5 

 grms. of nitrogen. Thus of the nitrogen supplied 68-2 

 per cent, was excreted in the urine, 254 per cent in the 

 fneces, and about 6 per cent, was retained by the animal. 

 To attain such a result, however, it is necessary to 

 collect the urine and f<xces as they are voided, and to 

 preserve them or analyse them before any fermentation 

 and evaporation of ammonia can take place. 



Assuming the animal itself to cause no loss of 

 nitrogen other than that retained in the increased live 

 weight, a number of experiments have been made to 

 ascertain the losses in making farmyard manure under 

 ordinary working conditions. 



For example, Maercker and Schneidewind, at Leuch- 

 stadt, in 1896-7 tied up twenty-four three-year-old 

 steers from i6th June to 29th October 1896 — 136 days 

 — during which their average increase of live weight 

 was 306 lb. The food consisted of lucerne hay, chaff, 

 barley straw, dried sugar beet pulp, decorticated cotton 

 cake, and bran, and they were littered on wheat straw. 



Twelve of the beasts were tied up in a deep, carefully 

 cemented box or pit, from which no losses by drainage 

 could take place, and the dung was not disturbed but 

 kept trampled down until the end of the trial. The 

 second twelve were fed in an ordinary stall, and the 

 dung and litter were removed every other day to one 

 or other of two heaps in the yard alternately, one of 

 these being covered by a roof, and the other open to the 

 weather. At the end of the feeding experiment the 

 three lots of dung were carefully sampled and analysed, 

 with the results set out in Table LIV. below. 



In a second experiment, fourteen steers were fed in 



