

















New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. A]: 
secured possess a practical and a scientific value, and indicate 
other results of still greater interest only awaiting careful investi- | 
_ gation to be determined. 
It is desirable that better provision be made for extending and 
continuing this branch of our work at the Station. 
BARN-YARD MANURE. 
In order to properly understand the composition and value of 
barn-yard manure, it is necessary to consider the function of food 
in the animal economy. 
In addition to supplying the material for the development of 
the body of the growing animal, food furnishes, through its con- 
sumption within the body, the animal heat and muscular force, 
supplying also the material to make good the constant waste of 
bony and muscular tissue. 
A large portion of the food, depending upon the quality and 
quantity furnished the animal, remains undigested, and therefore 
unassimilated, and being thrown off constitutes the bulk of stable 
manure. The waste tissue of the body is eliminated mainly by 
the kidneys, and constitutes the liquid portion of manure, and 
since this is in a soluble condition, it is readily appropriated as 
food by the growing plant, and representing as it does the waste 
of bone and muscle, it is found to consist largely of compounds of 
nitrogen and phosphorus, two of the most important elements 
of plant food, and two of the most valuable constituents of 
commercial fertilizers. 
Farm economy, therefore, demands that every reasonable pre- 
caution should be taken to secure, as far as possible, this the 
most valuable portion of our stable manure, 
In the arrangement of the new barn much care has been given 
to the method by which it is proposed to secure every pound of 
fertilizing material produced in the stables, and it is thought that 
this feature of construction alone will, as an example to be followed 
_ by our farmers, amply repay all expenses attending the construc- 
tion of the barn. 
Careful experiments made at the Station, and recorded in this 
report, prove that the liquid portion of the manure contains 
- approximately the same amount of fertilizing material as the solid 
portion; but, in addition, the portion present in the liquid portion, 
as has been already stated, is in a condition rendering it immedi- 
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