316 BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
received much larger quantities of plant food than the crops could use. 
Thus, horse manure sent from stables in New York city into Con- 
necticut by railroad was found by Prof. Johnson * to weigh 35 Ibs. 
per cubic foot and to contain (among other things) 0.53% of nitrogen, 
0.51% of potash; 0.41% of phosphoric acid; and 75% of water. If 
it be admitted, for the sake of the argument, that the stable manure 
applied to squares B 2 and BB 2. was of similar weight and composi- 
tion to the sample examined by Johnson, then each of these squares 
received in the 280 lbs., or 1271 kilos., of the manure that were 
applied to it 675 grammes of nitrogen, 649 grammes of potash and 
522 grammes of phosphoric acid; that is to say, vastly more of each 
of these substances than was applied in the mixtures of commercial 
fertilizers, or than there was any real need of, to judge by the data 
given on page 116 or by the crops that were actually harvested from 
the squares that received the horse dung. 
The same remark will apply to the squares that were dressed with 
cow manure. Fresh cow dung from West Cornwall, Conn., as exam- 
ined by Prof. Johnson,* weighed 63 Ibs. to the cubic foot and con- 
tained 0.38% of nitrogen; 0.36% of potash; 0.16% of phosphoric 
acid, and 85% of water. Hence, if the dung applied to squares B 1 and 
BB 1 was of similar weight and composition to Johnson’s sample, each 
of these squares must have received 504 lbs., or 229 kilos., of the 
dung, containing 870 grammes of nitrogen, 825 grammes of potash, and 
367 grammes of phosphoric acid. 
It is hard to believe that the application to dry soils of such enormous 
quantities of plant food as these analyses indicate can be either judicious 
or economical. It would seem to be far more reasonable to use mod- 
erate quantities of stable manure in conjunction with artificial fertilizers, 
than to apply large quantities of the dung by itself. There are un- 
doubtedly certain valuable qualities that are peculiar to stable manure, 
notably its power of diffusing nitrogen compounds in the soil, as was 
urged on page 131, and of loosening and mulching the land. It is 
important of course that these peculiarities should be clearly recog- 
nized and made the most of; but, in so far as concerns the carrying of 
potash and of phosphoric acid to the land, it does not appear that the 
dung of animals has any special merit. In this respect it is probable 
* Seventh Report Sec. Connecticut Board of Agriculture, 1873, page 350. 
The dung in question was well-nigh free from any admixture of straw. 
