PITS FOR KEEPING MANURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1418, 25 January 1879, Page 5

PITS FOR KEEPING MANURE.

The first requisite to the economical saving and handling of the manure, is a manure pit. The size needed can easily be, calculated, by allowing one cubic yard for every ton to be made. For 600 tons of manure made yearly a pit of a capacity of 300 cubic yards should be made, aB it would be emptied twice in the year. A pit 30 feet long, 15 wide, and

4| feet below the surface, would hold 300 tons, if the contents were heaped A\ feet above the surface. The simplest manure pit is a mere hollow in the ground, which prevents the liquid from flowing away from it in odorous streams here and there, but permits it to sink into the ground and escape. The first improvement consists in making the hollow water-proof, so aa to retain the liquid part. This may be done by cementing the bottom of the hollow. The next

improvement would be to build a retaining wall of brick or stone to hold the manure heap, and to make a drain by which the surplus liquid matter might be carried off into a cistern, This method, which is very cheap, simple, and effective, is illustrated at fig, 1, in which the walls are shown at a, a, and the drain by the dotted lines below the surface of the ground. A further improvement may be made us shown at figure 2, by sloping the bottom, c, c, from each side to the centre, inside of the retaining walls, a,

a, and placing a drain at the lowest point, to carry off and collect the liquid manure. ' At h is an opening at eittter of the end walls, through which a cart or wagon may be driven to unload or remove the manure. These openings may be left open or closed by gates. At figure 3is shown the ground plan of this manure pit, with the opening in the walls referred to. If desired, there may be two openings, so that a wagon may be driven

clear through. A further enlargement may be made by arranging the pit as shown at figure 4, which represents a cross section of it. There are the retaining walls, a, a, as before, ana the pit is sunk to a convenient depth beneath tho level of the ground, the floor being cemented and sloping to the lear, where the cistern is placed. The ciatern is arched over, and an opening, seen at /, fig 4, to be covered with an iron grating, is made in tbe arch, and the floor of the pit over this cistern, slopes each way to the grating, as seen at/, in figure 5. This figure is a ground plan of the manure pit, the open Bpace shown at the front being the gateway or entrance. , :% point for serious consideration is the covering of the yards or manure pits, which will receive attention in our next.