172 



The growing of more leguminous plants, such as beans, peas, clover, 

 lupines, etc., as a means of increasing the fertility of the soil, is strongly 

 recommended both from theoretical and practical considerations, but as 

 has been said : 



The legiimiious crop is best utilisedwhen.it is fed out oa the firm an i the 

 manure saved and applied to the soil. Tie greatest profit is thus secured and 

 nearly the same fertility is maintained as in green manuring. * * * The far- 

 mer should mead his system so that the barnyard manure will ba as well cared foe 

 as any other farm product. Loss from surface washiug, leaching, fermentation, 

 and decay should be guarded ag.inst. Then the feediag of richer food will m i iti 

 richer manure and better and cheaper crops. 



It is hard to persuade the farmer to abandon time-honoured practices 

 and adopt methods with which he is unfamiliar. He also hesitates 

 about incurring the necessary expense of building suitable receptacles 

 for the storage of manure, frequently assuming that this is greater than 

 it really is. As Roberts states "the new idea that the mauure should 

 be as carefully preserved from unnecessary waste as aay other product 

 of the farm is hard to put in practice, after having stored for forty 

 years the farmyard manure under the eaves upon the steep hillside 

 which forms one border of the running brook." 



It is to be feared that ihe iutroduction of commercial fertilisers has 

 Dot been without effect in increasing the apparent indifference with 

 which this valuable farm resource is so often regarded. Too many 

 farmers lose sight of the fact that, as a rule, commercial fertilisers should 

 supplement and not entirely replace the manorial supplies of the farm. 



AMOUNT, VALUE, AND COMPOSITION OF MANURE PRODUCED BY DIF- 

 FERENT ANIMALS. 



It is of great importance to the fanner to know the amount and value 

 of manure which will be produced in a given time by animals of differ- 

 ent kinds, and various methods of calculating these approximately have 

 been proposed. Some authorities base their calculations upon the 

 amount of straw used as litter, assuming that for 1 ton of straw used 

 as bedding, 4 tons of manure will be produced. Armsby shows, from 

 carefully conducted experiments with horses, that where straw is used 

 as economically as possible, each horse will require 2,500 pounds of 

 straw per year for bedding purposes. Using this as a basis, he calcu- 

 lates " that a ton of wheat straw, economically bandied, may result in 

 6 tons of fresh manure," but under ordinary circumstances it will prob- 

 ably not result in more than 5 tons. " In stables where but one or two 

 horses are kept or where the manure is infrequently hauled away, the 

 product might not greatly exceed 2\ t^ns when the time came to re- 

 move it." 



Probably the most accurate method which has been used is that 

 adopted by Heiden and others, which bases all calculations upon the 

 amount of food consumed and litter used 



The dried excrement of horses, cows and other neat cattle, and sheep 

 is nearly one half of the dry food consumed. One hundred pounds of 

 dry matter iu food consumed by horses yields 210 pounds of manure, 

 containing on an average 77.0 per cent of moisture. To this should be 

 added the wegiht of bedding (amounting to about 6i pounds per day) 

 in order to get the total product of manure. Making allowances for 

 dung and urine dropped outside of the stable, Heiden calculates that 

 a well-fed working horse will produce 50 pounds of manure per day, 



