WASTE IN' MANURE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 3 October 1907, Page 1

WASTE IN' MANURE

ff.r ton years the Ohio exptrim"":l station has been conducting experimo;s..« in which manure taken directly from the stable in April, and applied to land about to be ploughed for corn, the corn lioinp; followed by wheat and clover in rotation without further mamiring or fei tilisiiiE, is compared with manure produced by the same animals and applied in the same quantity and manner and at the same time, but which has laid in an open barnyard through the winter. These experiments show a loss of 20 per cent of the* total weight of the manure between January and April. The loss in effectiveness is indicated by the fact (hat the ton of frosh manure has nrodnred an average increase in the throe crops of the rotation to the value of 2 dollars 94 cents, while that from the same original quantity of manure, after laying four or five months in the barnyard, has amounted to but one dollar 70 cents, a. loss of more than forty per cent. Chemical analysis made in January and April shojp.,that ths manure lost between those dates twenty Jtwo por cent of i*i totil phosphorus, nearly 50 per cent of its total potassium, and more than forty per cent of its total nitrogen ; but when the water soluble contents were determined it was found that .while the loss of phosphorus retained practically the same proportion, (hat of pota-scium amounted to fiftyfour por cent, and that of nitrogen to s?venty-three per cent. That the total lr:ss iii effectiveness is not still greater is probably due to the fact that the soil upon which these experiments have been made is very deficient in phosphorus, and requires a much higher percentage of that element in the fertiliser (o produce the maximum effect than that found in ordinary manur*.