Farmyard Manure. 



[JUNE, 



the animals through the whole winter so that they need not 

 be cleaned out except when dung is wanted to go straight on 

 the land. A box, for example, 8 ft. by TO ft. in area with an 

 available depth of 3 ft. would hold about 9 cubic yds., or 

 8 tons of dung when well trodden down. This would accom- 

 modate two beasts, each receiving 10 lb. of straw in food and 

 12 lb. in litter per diem for four months. As far as possible 

 manure made in the spring should be left undisturbed until 

 the autumn, when it may be carted out on to the stubbles and 

 ploughed in where potatoes or roots are to be taken in the 

 following spring. Even on the lightest soils the land will be 

 more benefited thus than if the manure is made up into a 

 mixen and put on immediately before the roots are grown. 

 Sometimes, of course, a potato grower must have a supply of 

 well rotted manure to put in the drills immediately before 

 planting ; this can often be got from the lower layers of the 

 earliest used boxes or yards, because a mixen should be avoided 

 as much as posible. The principle to keep in mind is that 

 every disturbance of faimyard manure results in loss and 

 that the shorter the time which elapses between the dropping 

 of the dung and its application to the land the less this loss 

 of fertilising material will become. 



, In considering the value of farmyard manure as a fertiliser 

 one has to keep in mind that it is an essential product of the 

 farm, and that it must constitute the main source of manure 

 for the land under the conditions of ordinary mixed farming, 

 where artificial manures will only be used a<= supplements 

 and not as its rivals. It is only in certain special cases, such 

 as potato or hop growing, where the ordinary course of 

 farming does not supply as much farmyard manure as is 

 wanted, and where the question has then to be decided whether 

 artificial manures or dung from the towns shall be purchased, 

 or again whether stock shall be fattened solely with the view 

 of making manure. 



As a fertiliser the chief value of farmyard manure lies in the 

 fact that it contains all the elements of a plant's nutrition — 

 nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash — though for a well- 

 balanced manure the phosphoric acid is comparatively deficient. 

 Moreover, the nitrogen is present in various forms of combina- 

 tion, varying from the rapidly acting ammonia compounds down 



