4 
Colorado Experiment Station. 
have left the manure on the farm unused, but this was not wholly 
due to ignorance or to unwillingness to expend the labor necessary 
to apply it. The application of fresh manure to irrigated soils in-’ 
volves serious questions which are mentioned in this place merely to 
explain what must seem to most readers an irrational practice. 
Many inquiries among practical farmers brought out the fact that 
there are apparently good reasons for not applying fresh manure, 
namely, the manure does not rot and produces what is designated as 
“burning,'’ by which they mean that manured land dries out quickly 
and the crop suffers. In fact the manure sometimes does more in¬ 
jury than good. 
-» 
The Samples Studied. 
The studies began in 1903 and 1904 during which time all the 
samples were collected and a large part of the analytical work fin¬ 
ished. All the samples came from the vicinity of Fort Collins. Up to 
this time manures had not been used to any great extent except on 
small truck farms, lawns and gardens. Many car loads were shipped 
to Denver and it was a common sight in northern Colorado to see 
large piles of excellent corn-fed sheep manure left in the waste places 
of the farm to weather away. While the practice heretofore com¬ 
mon among our farmers has been wasteful, the general result was 
to present an excellent opportunity for the study of the changes which 
had taken place in the manure due to the exposure to high winds, 
strong sunshine, and occasional heavy rains. There was no trouble 
at that time to get sheep or cattle manure of almost any age up to 
ten years and often even older, one lot being found which was twenty- 
seven years old. This was not the case with horse manure which, in our 
dry climate, fire-fangs badly. One instance came under our 
observation of a pile of horse manure taking fire spontaneously. For 
this reason practically no horse manure more than a year old can be 
found and that which has attained the age of a year and has lain in 
large heaps is simply a mass of dry, blackened stems, having very 
little value as a manure. 
Waste of Liquid Manure. 
Where so little attention is paid to the production of manure, no 
composting is done and the term “manure pile” simply means the pile 
of manure as it is thrown out of the barn or scraped out of the corrals. 
It generally contains only such bedding as was put into the stalls or 
corrals to keep the animals clean and not with the idea of absorbing 
the liquid manure or using straw as a part of the future fertilizer. 
No attempt whatever is made to use the liquid manure. If the barn 
can be so located that the urine runs away into a gutter or sewer, or if 
