The Deterioration of Manures. 
ii 
and liquid manure for an average of 82 days, there was a loss ot 
51.0 percent of nitrogen, 51.1 percent of phosphoric acid and 61.1 
percent of potash. Another experiment by Dr. Voorhees* gives as 
the results with solid and liquid manure exposed from February 
4 to June 15, a period of 131 days, a loss of 57 percent nitiogen, 
62 percent phosphoric acid and 72 percent potash. 
A Difference in the Losses is Found. 
Both of these experiments at the New Jersey Station, while 
dealing with a different manure under more severe conditions, show 
very much larger losses in 82 days and 131 days, than our sheep ma¬ 
nure exhibited in over one year. This is particularly true of the potash 
which lost more rapidly than either the nitrogen or phosphoric acid 
in both the above experiments while, in our experiment with sheep 
manure, no potash at all was lost during the first year, and only 
34.69 percent at the end of the two years. This is certainly a veiy 
remarkable fact and shows the very different character of losses m 
semi-arid climates. With us the heaviest loss is in nitrogen, while 
the chief loss under humid conditions is potash. This simply indi¬ 
cates the different manner in which the loss takes place. In the 
humid climate the loss a manure sustains is caused largely by 
leaching which dissolves the soluble salts, the principal one of which 
is potash. On the other hand the chief loss in semi-arid climates is 
nitrogen because it is easily converted into ammonia and lost dur¬ 
ing dry weather, while the loss of potash is small on account of t e 
smaller number of drenching rains. 
A Series of eriments ot the Cornell Stotiou. 
Roberts and Wing exposed horse manure loosely piled in a box, 
surrounded by manure, for a period of six months. The losses were 
36.2 percent of the nitrogen, 50.0 percent of the phosphoric acid ana 
588 percent potash. At the same time the foregoing experiment 
was being tried, a solid block of horse and cow manure, taken as 
it had been compacted by the trampling of the animals, was exposed 
to the weather and the losses recorded were 3.2 percent of the nitro¬ 
gen, 4.7 percent of the phosphoric acid and 35.0 percent of the pot- 
asht. . u 
In an experiment the following year a two-ton pile ot horse 
manure lost 60 percent of its nitrogen, 47 percent of its phosphoric 
acid and 76 percent of the potash. A five-ton pile of cow manure 
presented an apparent exception to the above three experiments y 
giving losses amounting to 41 percent of the nitrogen, 19 percent of 
the phosphoric acid and 8 percent of the potash. Professor Rob- 
*New Jersey Report of 1899. 
t New York Cornell Station Bulletins Nos. 13 and 27. 
