6 
Colorado Experiment 'Station. 
If the manure was in a pile, an average depth was selected and a 
hole dug into the pile from the surface to the ground. When a smooth 
vertical surface was obtained, a slice about eight inches r wide and 
three inches thick was cut from the top to the bottom and placed in a 
bag. A smaller sample was placed in a fruit jar and sealed. jForty- 
five of these samples were collected during 1903 and 1904 but no 
manure pile or corral was sampled unless a fairly accurate history of 
it could be obtained. 
The determinations of free ammonia and moisture were made on 
the freshly taken and sealed samples. The samples in the bags were 
air-dried, ground and sampled. Bedding is not used in the corrals 
unless there is mud, which occurs rather seldom in Colorado. The winter 
of 1903 and 1904 was particularly open and dry and no bedding was 
used; for this reason the samples called fresh manure were free from 
straw, while the older samples were probably nearly so. 
Loss of Dry Matter on Weathering. 
From the foregoing preliminary remarks, it will be seen that 
our study will, for the most part, have to do with analyses of manures 
of different kinds and of various ages gathered at about the same 
time. There is, however, another factor which must be known be¬ 
fore any sharp conclusions regarding deterioration of manures can be 
drawn, namely, the loss of dry matter through weathering. Any one 
who has observed a pile of manure in a barnyard knows that it grad¬ 
ually diminishes in bulk and changes its appearance until it is finally 
difficult to distinguish the manure from the soil itself. 
AN EXPERIMENT WITH SHEEP MANURE. 
To determine the amount of this loss, ten tons of sheep manure 
were obtained from a corral where lambs had been finished for mar¬ 
ket by the usual method. The manure had received no moisture dur¬ 
ing the whole time of accumulation and was tramped into a hard cake 
about six inches deep over the whole corral. No bedding had been 
used although some alfalfa stems from the feeding racks were 
found in the manure. The ten tons of manure were put into a crib 
with a board floor on March 2d, 1904, making a heap about 3^2 + o 
4 feet deep. The aeration of the manure in hauling and placing in 
the crib, caused very active bacterial action which manifested itself 
in two or three days. To check the heating and settle the manure, it 
was wet down thoroughly but not enough to cause water to run through 
the pile. 
Ammonia is Lost Rapidly. 
A few days after this the smell of escaping ammonia was very 
