118 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



clean out your stables, do not throw the 

 litter close to the entrance, where it will 

 lie in a loose heap, and spoil by rapid fer- 

 mentation, but get your new wheelbarrow 

 and take the litter to a distant part of the 

 yard where it will be mixed with the fit* 

 ter of the pig pens, cow house and sheep 

 fold. The advantages of such a mixture 

 we have already explained. 



The system of managing manure here 

 imperfectly sketched is adapted rather to 

 a wheat growing section, and for farms 

 where a large quantity of straw is raised, 

 and which is all used on the farm, than to 

 the New England States, where scarcely 

 enough straw is produced for bedding, 

 even when the most rigid economy is prac- 

 tised. We have no great love for manure 

 cellars, but where straw is scarce and 

 muck plentiful, they have some advanta- 

 ges. In them, as in the open yard, the 

 chief objects of the farmer must be to ab- 

 sorb all the urine, and prevent a too rapid 

 fermentation of the dung. If a conside- 

 rable number of cows and hogs are kept, 

 and their manure is well mixed with the 

 horse dung, the latter will be easily accom- 

 plished ; and by spreading a little muck 

 over the surface of the heap occasionally, 

 all the ammonia can be retained ; but 

 where horse dung is loosely thrown into 

 the cellar, it will rapidly decompose, and 

 much ammonia will be given off. It is 

 vain to suppose that the cellar can be kept 

 so close as to prevent the escape of ammo- 

 nia. The only way this can be accom- 

 plished is by employing the so called fix- 

 ers — sulphate of lime in solution, as we 

 have said, is the best — or by the use of 

 absorbents, straw, muck, charcoal, he. 



We canot resist the conviction, howev- 

 er, that farmers as a general rule, will not 

 employ chemical means to retain the am- 

 monia in manure, and we believe there is 

 less necessity for doing so than is com- 

 monly supposed by scientific writers, if 

 the manure heap is judiciously managed. 

 Prof. Wolff says: " By maintaining the 

 manure moderately moist throughout its 

 entire mass, a fertilizer will be produced, 

 preserving almost entirely the original vir- 

 tue of the manure, and in a form well 

 adapted to promote the growth of crops ; 

 and this without employing chemical flx- 

 ing-agents, as plaster, sulphuric acid, &c, 

 whose application on a large scale is of- 

 ten too costly and troublesome. Swamp 



muck, peat, brown-coal powder, or any 

 earth rich in vegetable matter may be eco- 

 nomically emplo}^ed to assist in retaining 

 ammonia. Whichever material be used, 

 it should be strewed as a thin coating over 

 the surface of the manure, from time to 

 time during the summer ; and be kept 

 moderately moist by occasional drench- 

 ings with the contents of the cistern." 



Although Prof. Wolff thinks that 

 " where yard manure and composts are 

 skillfully prepared, the loss of ammonia is 

 very slight, even without the use of fixing 

 agents," yet he cites the experiment of 

 Dr. Krutzsek to show the extent to which 

 ammonia is given off when common li- 

 quid manure is allowed to foment unmixed 

 with fixing or absorbing agents. He found 

 that the solid residue remaining after the 

 evaporation of perfectly putrid yard liquid, 

 gave 3| per cent, of ammonia, while the 

 same liquid treated with an acid (fixer) 

 before evaporation gave a residue which 

 contained \%\ per cent, of ammonia. In 

 the Rothamsted experiments, if we recol- 

 lect right, sheep urine, evaporated-without 

 acid, lost even a still greater amount of 

 ammonia. Yet we should be careful how 

 we apply such results to common practice. 

 It is known that water will hold a large 

 quantity of ammonia, and we believe the 

 loss of " this spirit-like essence of the 

 farm, ever struggling to be free," from 

 fermenting common barn-yard drainings 

 is much less than the above figures indi- 

 cate, yet it is sufficiently great to warrant 

 the use of any cheap meihod of fixing it, 

 such as the one we have suggested by the 

 employment of sulphate of lime in solu- 

 tion. 



We would just add that though we dwell 

 so much on the importance of nitrogen in 

 the manure, we do not underrate the value 

 of the inorganic elements, which are of 

 course indispensable to the growth of all 

 plants. We speak more directly about ni- 

 trogen, because we think it of greatest im- 

 portance, and because we know there is 

 no way of increasing its amount on a farm, 

 without at the same time increasing the 

 amount of inorganic elements ; and also, 

 that there is no way of judiciously preser- 

 ving and fermenting the nitrogen without 

 at the same time preserving the inorgan- 

 ic elements and rendering them in a bet- 

 ter state for assimilation by the plant. Es- 

 pecially is this true of the phosphates and 



