32 
Colorado Experiment Station. 
The moisture in the manure plays a large part in retaining the 
free ammonia. 
Nitrogen as nitrates varied widely. There was none in the fresh 
manures even after keeping the air-dried samples in the laboratory sev¬ 
eral years. As much as 27 percent of the total nitrogen was found 
present as nitrates in one sample. There was, however, no unifor¬ 
mity in the results, i. e., some of the older manures carried large 
amounts of nitrates while other samples of the same age carried almost 
none. 
The carbon and hydrogen in manures are present in practically 
constant quantities, the age seemingly having* nothing to do with the 
amount. This was true in both the cattle and sheep manures and in 
both the soluble ash is nearly a constant quantity. 
Taking the results of all the tables as a whole, one is impressed 
by the sameness of the different determinations; especially is this true 
of the soluble ash, the potash, the phosphoric acid, the carbon and hy¬ 
drogen. It is not true, of course, of the insoluble ash which increases 
decidedly with age, nor of the free ammonia and nitrogen which de¬ 
crease with age. This sameness in the results means that, under our 
conditions at least, the manure is broken down by bacterial life at 
about the same rate that leaching carries away the soluble salts. 
