Reenforcement With Minerals

Categories: THE USE OF STABLE MANURE

A ton of mixed manure in the stable

contains about ten pounds of nitrogen, five pounds of phosphoric acid,

and ten pounds of potash. This makes the percentage of nitrogen and

potash the same, while the percentage of phosphoric acid is only half

as high. A commercial fertilizer of such percentages would be esteemed

a badly balanced one. Certainly the phosphoric acid should be

relatively high, as this constituent of plan -food runs low in the

soil. If 50 pounds of 14 per cent acid phosphate were added to each ton

of manure while it is being made in the stable, seven pounds of

phosphoric acid would be added, making the percentage in the manure a

little higher than that of the nitrogen and the potash. A better

balance is given to the fertility. There cannot be any loss in this

purchased plant-food, if the stable floor is tight. Fermentation cannot

drive it off, and when applied to the soil it is tightly held.

Practically no phosphoric acid is found in drainage waters. Eight tons

of manure thus reenforced would contain the same amount of plant-food

as a ton of fertilizer having 4 per cent nitrogen, 5 per cent

phosphoric acid, and 4 per cent potash. The addition of the 50 pounds

of acid phosphate per ton does not bring the phosphoric acid content up

as high relatively as in most commercial fertilizers, but it helps. The

total amount in the eight tons manure may be sufficient, and the

greater part of the total has sufficiently immediate availability,

while the manure must undergo decomposition, and some of the nitrogen

and potash does not become available within the year.