788 REPORT—1904. 
co-operation of several of the most fully equipped stations in the Empire, and the 
reports that have appeared bear testimony to the industry and analytical ingenuity 
that have been brought to bear on this important subject. 
The experiments were originally designed to extend over four years, the first, 
1892-93, being devoted to preliminary, chiefly laboratory, experiments ; the others, 
to work on a scale more in accordance with farm practice. But although the 
period originally contemplated is now long past, the problem is by no means 
solved, and the Society has recently been making a fresh grant for additional 
experiments of a similar character. In point of fact, the subject has been found to 
bristle with difficulties, and the results obtained with small quantities of manure, 
or in summer, have not always been confirmed with large quantities of manure, or 
in winter, 
In 1897 I published an account! of the more important results obtained up to 
that time, confining myself chiefly to questions of temperature and the loss of 
organic matter, and the conclusion arrived at was that ‘none of the conservation 
agents usually employed appears to have any very important influence on the 
decomposition of farmyard manure.’ 
Since then several important reports * have appeared, and I propose shortly to 
refer to their contents, 
While the experiments have in almost all cases dealt with the fate of nitrogen, 
phosphoric acid, and potash, the chief interest centres round the nitrogen, for, 
given reasonably satisfactory conditions of storage, it is only this constituent of 
farmyard manure that is likely to suffer loss. But much importance, from the 
experimental point of view, attaches to the analytical results obtained with the 
other two substances, for the reason that the quantities of these found are the 
surest test of the accuracy of the work. The general method of procedure has 
been to employ a fairly simple but sufficiently nutritous food-mixture, and to 
allow a definite quantity of this and of litter for a certain number of selected cows. 
The weight of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash in the food is accurately 
determined, all of which ultimately reaches the manure, less what goes into the 
milk, and into the live-weight increase, if any. If the account of what the 
animals receive as food and litter, and what they furnish as liquid and solid feces, 
milk, and animal increase, approximately balances as regards mineral matter, it 
may be assumed that the sampling and analysis have been sufliciently accurate to 
justify definite conclusions being based on any deficiency innitrogen that may befound. 
The work of Hansen and Giinther, Pfeiffer, and Immendorff was carried out 
at consecutive periods from 1893 to 1902, at the experimental station of Zwiitzen, 
near Jena, where stalls and dung-pits had been constructed for the purposes of 
this research. Schneidewind’s experiments were conducted at the station of 
Lauchstidt, near Halle. 
Effects of Kainit.—This was used by Hansen and Giinther at the rate of °75 
kg. per 1,000 kg. live weight of stock per day, while Pfeiffer and Immendorff 
used twice as much. The kainit was in no case spread on the litter in the stall, 
as this would have caused inflammation of the skin of the udder, legs, and abdomen 
of the cows, but was sprinkled on the manure as spread and pressed into the pits. 
In certain series of the experiments the manure was removed from the stalls daily, 
in others it was only removed once a week. Two weeks was the usual time 
necessary to collect a sufficient quantity of manure, which, with the liquids, 
usually amounted to about 8,000 kg. at Zwiitzen, and about one-fifth of tl is 
weight at Lauchstiidt. The period of storage was generally about four months. 
Hansen and Giinther found that in pits the untreated manure lost 11'5 per 
cent. of nitrogen; while the manure treated with kainit lost 14:4 per cent. 
' Journal Board of Agriculture, September, 1897. 
? Hansen and Giinther, ‘ Versuche iiber Stallmist-Behandlung,’ Arbeiten der Deut. 
Land. Gesell. Heft 30, 1898. Pfeiffer, « Stallmist-Konservirung,’ ibid. Heft 73, 1902. 
Immendorff, ‘ Ueber Stallmist-Bewahrung,’ Mitt. der Deut. Land. Gesell. Heft 21, 
1903. Schneidewind, ‘Fiinfter Bericht iiber die Versuchswirtschaft,’ Lauchstadt, 
Land. Jahrb. xxxiii. p. 190. 
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