d animals, with the straw
necessary to absorb the liquid, are placed in a heap, fermentation sets
in and soon effects very important changes in the nature and composition
of the materials. The insoluble woody fibre of the straw is decomposed
and converted into humic and ulmic acids. These are insoluble; and when
manure consists almost wholly of straw or corn stalks, there would be
little gained by fermenting it. But when there is a good proportion of
manure from well fed animals in the heap, carbonate of ammonia is formed
from the nitrogenous compounds in the manure, and this ammonia unites
with the humic and ulmic acids and forms humate and ulmate of ammonia.
These ammoniacal salts are soluble in water--as the brown color of the
drainings of a manure heap sufficiently indicates.

Properly fermented manure, therefore, of good quality, is a much more
active and immediately useful fertilizer than fresh, unfermented manure.
There need be no loss of ammonia from evaporation, and the manure is far
less bulky, and costs far less labor to draw out and spread. The only
loss that is likely to occur is from leaching, and this must be
specially guarded against.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE MANAGEMENT OF MANURES.--Continued.

WHY DO WE FERMENT MANURE?

However much farmers may differ in regard to the advantages or
disadvantages of fermenting manure, I have never met with one who
contended that it was good, either in theory or practice, to leave
manure for months, scattered over a barn-yard, exposed to the spring and
autumn rains, and to the summer's sun and wind. All admit that, if it is
necessary to leave manure in the yards, it should be either thrown into
a basin, or put into a pile or heap, where it will be compact, and not
much exposed.

We did not need the experiments of Dr. Voelcker to convince us that
there was great waste in leaving manure exposed to the leaching action
of our heavy rains. We did not know exactly how much we lost, but we
knew it must be considerable. No one advocates the practice of exposing
manure, and it is of no use to discuss the matter. All will admit that
it is unwise and wasteful to allow manure to lie scattered and exposed
over the barn-yards any longer than is absolutely necessary.

We should either draw it directly to the field and use it, or we should
make it into a compact heap, where it will not receive more rain than is
needed to keep it moist.

One reason for piling manure, therefore