•v;s.sej>Si.
rsity
VOL. LXII
INDIANAPOLIS, FEBRUARY 9, 1907.
NO. 6
HANDLING   MANURE.
The Large Savings of Fertility
Noted by the Indiana and
Other Stations.
Manure on the Farm.
By M. L. Fisher, Assist, rrof. of Agronomy, Purdue University,  Lafayette.
The surest and cheapest way of keeping up the fertility of the land is to feed
out on the farm the crops that are raised
there. A ton of elover hay contains
fertilizing elements valued at about $9.80;
a ton of oats about $7.65; a tou of corn
stover $5.G5. When these feeds are fed
to live stock from 70 to nearly  100 per
as soon as made there is no loss of nitrogen and carbon dioxide by fermentation,
and what soluble ingredients are washed
into the soil are taken* care of by the
plant roots or become chemically combined with  the minerals in the soil.
It is desirable to have the fermentation
aud decay of manure take place in the
soil, for the nitrogen then becomes slowly available and does not escape into the
air. The carbon* dioxide and acids produced by decay combine with other elements in the soil and form new combinations which result in the elaboration of
larger quantities of plant food. The
drainage waters will carry away very little valuable material as compared with
lhat carried away by drainage
from      tbe      ordinary      manure      piles.
be covered once in three years. Certainly
this would be better than to apply ten
tons every six years. The manure
should be spread uniformly, and for this
purpose nothing is better than a manure
spreader.
In a rotation of corn, wheat or oats,
and clover, the manure is best applied
to the corn. The corn plant has an extensive root system and tbis enables it to
make good use of the plant food as it becomes slowly available during the summer. If possible apply to the clover
sod and plow under in the autumn. The
autumn plowing permits the coarse material to become well soaked during the
winter and ready to decay the followiaig
spring. The ground cana usually be
prepared for corn    earlier    in the spring
.is it can be done. There are of course
a few days or possibly a few weeks in
the year when this will uot be practical.
If the fields are soft of course the manure
cannot be spread but it does uot happeti
often that there is more than a week or
two at a time when the fields are too wet
to go on with a manure spreader, _ and if
this docs happen, as soon as the fields
are dry the yards should be cleaned out
and kept clean.
The question of getting the manure to
the field and properly spreading it is of
more importance than the place to put it
for the reason that manure deteriorates
very fast if left exposed in the yards. A
place cau always be found to spread the
manure. In the spring months. After
the planting is done the grain crops can
Manure Spreader at Work    on  a  Large Farm.
cent of their plant food elements are returned in the excrement of the animals,
and the farmer has the gain of the animal besides.
However, to save all the excrement of
animals on the farm is practically an impossibility. On very few farms is
there any special provision for saving the
liquid excrement. Inasmuch as the liquids are from one-half to three-fourths
of the total excrement and are worth,
weight for weight, twice as much as the
solids, it is evident that few farmers
realize iu the manure anything like the
calculated chemical value of the feeds
which they feed.
The value of the manure depends a
great deal upon* the kind and age of the
animals producing it. Cattle and hogs
produce a watery manure and, consequently, one that does not heat readily.
Horses, sheep, and poultry produce a
comparatively dry manure and one which
heats quickly. The manure from young
growing animals is less rich in nitrogen
and phosphoric acid than that from mature animals. The manure from milch
cows is not so rich as that from fattening steers. A ration of corn stover
and wheat straw will not return in the
manure such valuable plant food as a
ration of clover hay and gluten feed.
Manure thrown out under the eaves of
the barn is not worth as much as that
hauled  directly  to   the  field.
Preserving the manure after it is made
is one of the big problems on the farm.
It is pretty well agreed by progressive
farmers that the ideal way is tai haul directly to the field and scatter with a manure spreader. The manure spreader
spreads much more evenly than the most
•carefnl man can do by hand. When
manure is hauled to the field and spread
An experiment by th,e Cornell Station
showed that horse manure exposed in unsheltered piles during six summer months
lost 42 per cent of its value; and at the
Xew Jersey Station a pile of mixed manure exposed for 100 days lost an average
of 54 per cent of its fertilizing ingredients.
From these experiments then, it seems
clear that the way in which manure is
commonly kept on the farm is productive
of a great loss of plant food.
Where stock are kept loose in stables or
sheds, it is not a bad practice, so far as
.Uiality of manure is concerned, to allow
it to accumulate for some time. Plenty
of bedding should be used to keep tha
animals clean and absorb the liquids.
Professor Frear found in an experiment
with steers, covering six months, that
there wdfl a saving in plant food of .$2.50
per heaal lay such practice over alaily
cleaning out and depositing in the ordinary method. However, after the ani-
mals are taken off, tbe manure should be
hauled out and scattered at once, because
there will be considerable loss of nitrogen
as saiaan as drying out begins to take place.
Whatever method of saving the manure
is adopted, the object should be to keep
it solid and moist. The compactness
hinalers tin* admission of air, preventing
fermentation, the moisture keeps down
the temperature so that "burning" does
not take place.
ln general a light application frequently made will give better results than a
heavy   one   at   long   intervals. At   the
Indiana Station applications of two or
three tons per acre every year on wheat
aaats, anal caarn have given ns good results
as four to six tons. On a well organised farm of eighty acres, there ought
to be 125 tons of manure each year. At
live tons per acre,    the whole farm could
from fall plowing than from spring plowing, and will usually hold moisture better during the summer. Where ground
has been covered late in the winter or
early spring with manure it does not dry
off so quickly as uncovered ground and
the plowing is consequently delayed. A
few days iu the spring usually make a
good deal of difference with the corn
crop.
Manure can be plowed under or applied as a top dressing for wheat and
oats. When turned under the depth!
should not be great and the furrow slice I
should be thoroughly worked down and
pulverized. The application should not
be henvy, especially if plowed under, unlaws ample time is given for decay he-
fore seeding.
It must be remembered that manure
lias tasting qualities and one or two crops
do not measure its value to the land.
Professor Latta has shown at the Indi
VU Station that n heavy application was
still making a showing iu the thirteenth
continuous crop of corn. In this experiment the totnl increased yielals showed
the manure to have been worth about one
dollar per ton per year. In another series of experiments by the same station,
manure has shown itself to be worth from
40 cents to $4 per ton for each crop. Another series shows it to be worth from
75 eents to $1.50 per ton for three crops.
It is evident that besides the factors alis-
eusscd above that the nature of the season, the kiml of soil, anal the crop to
which applied influence the value of manure.
In slimming the whole proposition
up there is only one safe way for the average farmer to handle his barnyaral
manure, and that it is to spread it each
day as the manure is made,    or as often
be top dressed. Where this is done it is
always advisable to follow it up with the
cultivator so as to mix the manure with
the soil, as the corn roots do not feed
so near the surface. After the grain
and the corn are too high to top-dress
there may be a couple of weeks before
harvest when you will be obliged to
spread the manure on tiie pasture. lf
the manure is spread thin it will not be
objectionable. A thin coating of manure will not interfere with the pasture,
nnd especially not after the first rain, so
that really there is practically no time in
the year but that place can be found ou
the farm to spread the manure.
The Plant Food in a ton of
Manure.
By   Cyril   G.   Hopkins,   Urbana,   Illinois
Experiment Station.
The amount of food contained in a ton
of farm manure varies considerably and
depends largely upon four important factors, which are probably correctly rank-
eal in the following order:
1. The  condition  as  to  dryness.
2. The kind of feed and bedding.
:*..    The   state   of   preservation.
4.    The kind of live stock.
The plant food in a ton of manure varies with the dry matter content. Thus,
manure containing 85 per cent of water
is only half as rich in plant food as the
same manure after the water content has
been reduced by evaporation to 70 per
•rent. This   niay^   seem   impossible   at
tirst thought, but careful consialc.i-.it ion
will show that it is true. If the man
ure contains 85 per cent of water, it ear*
contain only 15 per cent of dry matter;
whereas manure containing only 70 per
cent of water must contain 30 per cent of