158 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



Mr. Austin : In Southern Illinois it is almost impossible 

 for us to haul manure out and leave it. Most of the time it is 

 mud. How should we care for that? 



Mr. Truitt : Probably this result of the experiment station 

 would give you the best suggestion on that. Keep the manure 

 trampled under foot on the concrete floor. There was practically 

 no loss during a period of two months. Dr. Hopkins said also 

 that where manure is kept moist you do not have this loss, due 

 to the heating, so either of those two suggestions would give you 

 a good method. 



Mr. Austin : Most of our farmers' contracts specify that 

 manure should be put at least a hundred feet from the barn. \ 

 How can we have manure under foot and comply with that rule ? 



Mr. Truitt: A manure pit with a drain in the bottom, so 

 that the liquid would drain into a cistern, or some arrangement 

 of that nature, would do. The liquid is the valuable part of 

 that manure, and you would not lose the liquid if you followed 

 that system. Not everybody has money, however, to invest in 

 equipment of that kind. 



Mr. Smith : How would it do, where you are raising 

 heifers, to have a shed some little distance from the barn, where 

 your milk cows were, and put the manure in that shed and let 

 the heifers trample it down? 



Mr. Truitt : That is a very good suggestion. Is it not, Mr. 

 Mason ? 



Mr. Steiner : Is there any value in the manure being kept 

 on a cement floor, instead of a ground floor? 



Mr. Truitt^ Yes. The liquid cannot waste away on a con- 

 crete floor. In the experiment of the Pennsylvania Station, only 

 54% of the nitrogen was recovered on the dirt floor. If there 

 can be any leaching, of course, the waste due to the ammonia 

 fumes would be the same in either event. 



