Stable manure

“ In the light of these and other experiments, what do you consider the cheapest and best manure to apply to a permanent meadow or pasture?”
“Rich, well-decomposed farmyard or stable manure,” said I, “and if it is not rich, apply 200 lbs. of nitrate of soda per acre, in addition. This will make it rich. Poor manure, made from straw, corn-stalks, hay, etc., is poor in nitrogen, and comparatively rich in potash. The nitrate of soda will supply the deficiency of nitrogen. On the sea-shore fish-scrap is a cheaper source of nitrogen, and may be used instead of the nitrate of soda.” ”

“ There are only three conditions that must be provided in order that manure may be preserved without much loss. The manure must be protected from leaching rains, it must be kept moist, and air must be excluded. The exposure of stable manure to the processes of fermentation and leaching, produces a waste that is believed to amount to several hundreds of millions of dollars in the United States annually. The day will come when no farmer will be willing to share heavily in a loss from this source, but will either spread manure fast as made or provide a roof for the stored manure. ”

“ It is a fact that poultry manure, free from earth, contains even as high as four times as much plant food as ordinary stable manure. It is, therefore, to be used with proportional care, so that the plants shall not receive too much, and particularly so that there may not be too much collected in one place. Probably the best way to guard against this is to thoroughly mix the manure with three or four times its bulk of ordinary garden soil and then use this mixture at about the same rate you would stable manure. ”

“ With this idea in mind, it has been recommended that stable manure be collected every morning and hauled out at once and spread rather thinly on the fields. This procedure is advisable from the point of view of getting the maximum fertilizing value from the manure. Immediate spreading on the fields is said largely to prevent the loss of plant food which occurs when manure is allowed to stand in heaps for a long time. ”

“ It is desirable, moreover, that the manure when applied shall be ready for immediate service as plant food, which is not the case with the raw product. Fresh manure is but sparingly digestible by plant roots. Quicker cash results will be secured by applying prepared manure to the soil than by applying the product fresh from the stable. ”

“ Solid manures in their fresh state are of but very little use to plants. It is only as they are decomposed, and have their nitrogen turned into ammonia, and their other ingredients resolved into the condition required by plants, that they are of much value as fertilizers. We have seen that, if this decomposition takes place without proper precautions being made, the most valuable parts of the manure would be lost. Nor would it be prudent to keep manures from decomposing until they are applied to the soil, for then they are not immediately ready for use, and time is lost. ”

“ No weeds choke the wheat plants or rob them of their food; but that field does not produce as much wheat by 30 bushels per acre as the season is capable of producing. Why? The answer is evident. Because the wheat plants do not find food enough in the soil. Now, anything that will furnish this food, anything that will cause that field to produce what the climate or season is capable of producing, is manure. A gardener may increase his crops by artificial heat, or by an increased supply of water, but this is not manure. ”

“ The sight of that wheat field impressed me, as nothing else could, with the importance of guarding against the loss of available nitrogen from leaching, and it has changed my practice in two or three important respects. I realize, as never before, the importance of applying manure to crops, rather than to the land. I mean by this, that the object of applying manure is, not simply to make land rich, but to make crops grow. Manure is a costly and valuable article, and we want to convert XII it into plants, with as little delay as possible, which will, directly or indirectly, bring in some money. ”

“ If we have the necessary materials, it is not a difficult matter to make manure; in fact, the manure will make itself. We sometimes need to hasten the process, and to see that none of the fertilizing matter runs to waste. This is about all that we can do. We cannot create an atom of plant-food. It is ready formed to our hands; but we must know where to look for it, and how to get it in the easiest, cheapest, and best way, and how to save and use it. The science of manure-making is a profound study. It is intimately connected with nearly every branch of agriculture. ”

“ I am inclined to think that considerable nitrate of soda will yet be used in this country for manure. I do not suppose it will pay as a rule, on wheat, corn and other standard grain crops. But the gardener, seed grower, and nurseryman, will find out how to use it with great profit. Our nurserymen say that they cannot use artificial manures with any advantage. It is undoubtedly true that a dressing of superphosphate, sown on a block of nursery trees, will do little good. It never reaches the roots of the plants. Superphosphate can not be washed down deep into the soil. ”

“ One thing is certain, we do not, in many cases, get anything like as much benefit from our manure as the ingredients it contains would lead us to expect.
Mr. Lawes, on his clayey soil at Rothamsted, England, has grown over thirty crops of wheat, year after year, on the same land. One plot has received 14 tons of barn-yard manure per acre every year, and yet the produce from this plot is no larger, and, in fact, is frequently much less, than from a few hundred pounds of artificial manure containing far less nitrogen. ”

“ That the form in which a portion of these ingredients—nitrogen and phosphoric acid—is present is not of the most valuable kind.
It is consequently not as a direct chemical manure that farmyard manure is pre-eminently valuable. We must seek for perhaps its most valuable properties in its indirect influence.
It adds to the soil a large quantity of organic matter. Most soils are improved by the addition of humus. The water-absorbing and retaining powers of a soil are increased by this addition of humus, while it enables the soil to attract an increased amount of moisture from the air. ”

“ The loss is unquestionably very great, and would be greater if it were not for the coarse nature of the material, which allows the water to pass through it rapidly and without coming in direct contact with only the outside portions of the particles of hay, straw, etc., of which the manure is largely composed. If the manure was ground up very fine, as it would be when prepared for analysis, the loss of 100 soluble matter would be still more serious. ”

“ A consideration of equal importance is the previous treatment of the soil with manure. For example, where a soil has been liberally treated with farmyard manure, it has been found that mineral manures have [Pg 483] a very inferior effect to that obtained by nitrogenous manure. Lawes and Gilbert have found this to be strikingly the case in their experiments on the growth of wheat. In these experiments it was found that the application of mineral manures was accompanied with little or no benefit to the crop, whereas very striking results followed the application of nitrogen. ”

“ On light soils, on the contrary, whose friability and openness are already too great, and which do not require to be increased, the manure will be best applied in a rotten condition. It adds, further, greatly to the heat of the soils by its decomposition. Thus on cold damp soils it effects one very marked benefit. The influence it exerts in its decomposition upon the fertilising ingredients present in the soil is also by no means inconsiderable. In the process of its fermentation large quantities of carbonic acid gas are generated. ”

“ Many years ago, I made a great many experiments relative to the chemistry of farm-yard manure, and then showed, amongst other particulars, that manure, spread at once on the land, need not there and then be plowed in, inasmuch as neither a broiling sun, nor a sweeping and drying wind will cause the slightest loss of ammonia; and that, therefore, the old-fashioned farmer who carts his manure on the land as soon as he can, and spreads it at once, but who plows it in at his convenience, acts in perfect accordance with correct chemical principles involved in the management of farm-yard manure. ”

“ In using liquid manures either on the open ground or on potted plants, they should only be applied when the soil has been well watered the day before, never when it is dry. The plant, being supplied with all it needs to drink, absorbs only what it requires for nourishment and is less likely to be injured by an 29overdose. The moisture in the soil serves also to reduce the strength of the manure.
In applying old cow or horse manure to new beds a wheel-barrow load to every nine square feet is not too much for strong growing plants such as Ricinus, Cannas, and Salvias. ”

“ Vegetable growers often prefer a slower and more continuous action, and the rotting of manure under right conditions changes the liquid nitrogen into compounds that act more slowly.
The solid material in horse manure contains less water than that of the cow, and this absence of water permits quick fermentation when air is present. The use of large quantities of such manure per acre is not liked by vegetable-growers. Rotting under control in a covered barnyard has a beneficial effect for this reason when a hot manure is not wanted. ”

“ Most persons imagine that manure is all that is wanted to make a garden fruitful; and thus, if the fruit-trees do not bear, and the flowers and vegetables do not thrive, manure is considered the universal panacea. Now, the fact is, that so far from this being the case, most small gardens have been manured a great deal too much; and in many, the surface soil, instead of consisting of rich friable mould, only presents a soft black shining substance, which is the humic acid from the manure saturated with stagnant water. ”

“ A person signing himself a "Nobleman's Gardener," says in an English paper that it is a mistake to use poultry manure as a top-dressing for garden crops; for farm crops also, if the poultry and pigeon dung were in any considerable bulk. This, however, is not usually the case, and a hundred weight or two would not make much of an impression on a farm. The manure in question is a powerful fertilizer, containing ammonia, phosphates, and carbonate of lime in considerable quantity, also uric acid, all of which are valuable ingredients for the support of crops. ”

“ Where the manure-heap is exposed to rain, the quantity of water it will naturally receive will probably be quite sufficient, if indeed not too much, to ensure a proper rate of fermentation—except, perhaps, in very warm weather. The great point to be aimed at is to ensure regular fermentation. What has to be especially avoided is any sudden exposure of the manure to large quantities of water. The result of such a washing-out of the soluble nitrogen is to retard fermentation, besides incurring the risk of great actual loss by drainage. [170]
Application of Farmyard Manure to the Field. ”

“ The ease with which all sea-weeds pass into a state of putrefaction, adapts them in a peculiar manner to the manurial requirements of a cold and damp climate. The rapidity of their decomposition is such, that when spread on the land they are seen to soften and disappear in a short time. They form therefore a rapid manure, and their effects are said to be confined to the crop to which they are applied; but this is probably due to the fact, that they are chiefly used in inferior sandy soils, in which any manure is rapidly exhausted. ”

“ APPLYING MANURES The matter of properly applying manure, even on the small garden, is also of importance. In amount, from fifteen to twenty-five cords, or 60 to 100 cartloads, will not be too much; although if fertilizers are used to help out, the manure may be decreased in proportion. If possible, take it from the heap in which it has been rotting, and spread evenly over the soil immediately before plowing. If actively fermenting, it will lose by being exposed to wind and sun. If green, or in cold weather, it may be spread and left until plowing is done. ”

“ It is by contact of the countless mouths of the roots with minute particles of manure that they suck up nutriment, not by contact with a dense clod. Hence the astonishing and immediate efficacy of liquid manure. In that the nutriment has been reduced to its utmost condition of divisibility, and when the liquid is applied to the soil, saturation reaches the entire root, embracing its marvellous network of minute fibres, and affording to each the food which it may be seeking. ”

“ But if you live in a town you may not be able to get farm manure easily, and then you would find a chemical one useful. Clay’s Fertilizer is a well-known manure, and so is Shefa, but many people have killed their plants by using too much of them. A tablespoonful to the square yard is enough, and it should be scattered evenly over the surface before it is dug in. There are many other chemical manures, but it is not necessary for you to know much about them yet. If your grown-ups understand them, they will provide you with what your [9] soil needs ”