FARMYARD MANURE.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 610, 22 February 1921, Page 7

FARMYARD MANURE.

HOW TO TREAT IT. There is more art in the management of farmyard manure than in the collection and application of it. Even at its initial stage in the stable yard manure is generally sadly neglected. How often does one see a stream of its liquid content running into the stable drain,■ to be lost entirely ? And yet this liquid contains the most fertilising properties. The solid excrement is not half so valuable, although very essential. The same thing happens, too, when the manure is dumped in a convenient corner and left to the mercy of rain, which washes its best fertilising properties away from the solid portion, again considerably reducing the mammal value of the mass.

There may be no remedy for the draining away of liquids from manure, but there is the possibility of making provision for the return of these liquids to the bulk of solid matter. There are means for the collection of the drainings from stables and manure heaps which may be beneficially employed—an underground tank, for example—and the medium for returning the liquid to the manure heap is a small pump fixed on a platform over the tank. In the case of stables, of course, the liquids could not, in the interests of sanitation, be returned to the manure lying, upon the stable floor; but the drainings in the tank can and should be pumped into liquid-man-ure holders and conveyed to the distant manure heap and there disposed of. In many a farmyard a large pool of this valuable liquid may be seen after a season of rain, and when the manure is dumped by the side of the road or lane the ditches and ruts are full of liquid ix anure. By this, wasteful happening** the value of the stack manure is cut down by one-half at ieast.

The solid and lick'd pwi; :.s uf a heap of manure contain two distinct chemical combinations. In the urine, for example, a large number of soluble phosphorous compounds exist, also potash and nitrogenous matters ; v/hile the solid portion, also yielding phosphoric acid and nitrogen, contain substances which are practically absent in the urine—magnesia, lime, silica, etc. This shows plainly that, used alone,'either liquid or solid excrement is not a complete manure; but when thoroughly mixed, and thus applied to the soil, a perfect array of essential chemical compounds is restrained and brought into beneficial use. The loss of the most valuable fertilising agent produced in. manure ammonia is extremely great, owing to faulty management of manure heaps. The production of ammonia in the heated interior of the heap is very great, and this ammonia tries t 6 escape into the air. If the heap is made badly, or un-

duly disturbed (says “The Agricultural Gazette”), the ammonia is lost; if the heap is not protected from the weather the rain will wash out the soluble portion, and this, again, results in the great loss of ammonia, when these two* things happen to any extent, the value of the manure in the heap is reduced almost to vanishing point. It is, therefore, essential that manure heaps should be formed in a manner which will not produce violent heating, so that water shall be thrown readily ; and—possibly the most important—all liquids should be collected and occasionally pumped over into the mass.