MY OWN PLAN OF MANAGING MANURE.
One of the charms and the advantages of agriculture is that a farmer
must think for himself. He should study principles, and apply them in
practice, as best suits his circumstances.
My own method of managing manure gives me many of the advantages claimed
for the Deacon’s method, and John Johnston’s, also.
“I do not understand what you mean,” said the Deacon; “my method differs
essentially from that of John Johnston.”
“True,” I replied, “you use your winter-made manure in the spring; while
Mr. Johnston piles his, and gets it thoroughly fermented; but to do
this, he has to keep it until the autumn, and it does not benefit his
corn-crop before the next summer. He loses the use of his manure for a
year.”
I think my method secures both these advantages. I get my winter-made
manure fermented and in good condition, and yet have it ready for spring
crops.
In the first place, I should remark that my usual plan is to cut up all
the fodder for horses, cows, and sheep. For horses, I sometimes use long
straw for bedding, but, as a rule, I prefer to run everything through a
feed-cutter. We do not steam the food, and we let the cows and sheep
have a liberal supply of cut corn-stalks and straw, and what they do not
eat is thrown out of the mangers and racks, and used for bedding.
I should state, too, that I keep a good many pigs, seldom having less
than 50 breeding sows. My pigs are mostly sold at from two to four
months old, but we probably average 150 head the year round. A good deal
of my manure, therefore, comes from the pig-pens, and from two basement
cellars, where my store hogs sleep in winter.
In addition to the pigs, we have on the farm from 150 to 200 Cotswold
and grade sheep; 10 cows, and 8 horses. These are our manure makers.
The raw material from which the manure is manufactured consists of
wheat, barley, rye, and oat-straw, corn-stalks, corn-fodder, clover and
timothy-hay, clover seed-hay, bean-straw, pea-straw, potato-tops,
mangel-wurzel, turnips, rape, and mustard. These are all raised on the
farm; and, in addition to the home-grown oats, peas, and corn, we buy
and feed out considerable quantities of bran, shorts, fine-middlings,
malt-combs, corn-meal, and a little oil-cake. I sell wheat, rye, barley,
and clover-seed, apples, and potatoes, and sometimes cabbages and
turnips. Probably, on the average, for each $100 I receive from the sale
of these crops, I purchase $25 worth of bran, malt-combs, corn-meal, and
other feed for animals. My farm is now rapidly increasing in fertility
and productiveness. The crops, on the average, are certainly at least
double what they were when I bought the farm thirteen years ago; and
much of this increase has taken place during the last five or six years,
and I expect to see still greater improvement year by year.
“Never mind all that,” said the Deacon; “we all know that manure will
enrich land, and I will concede that your farm has greatly improved, and
can not help but improve if you continue to make and use as much
manure.”
“I expect to make more and more manure every year,” said I. “The larger
the crops, the more manure we can make; and the more manure we make, the
larger the crops.”
The real point of difference between my plan of managing manure, and the
plan adopted by the Deacon, is essentially this: I aim to keep all my
manure in a compact pile, where it will slowly ferment all winter. The
Deacon throws his horse-manure into a heap, just outside the stable
door, and the cow-manure into another heap, and the pig-manure into
another heap. These heaps are more or less scattered, and are exposed to
the rain, and snow, and frost. The horse-manure is quite likely to
ferment too rapidly, and if in a large heap, and the weather is warm, it
not unlikely “fire-fangs” in the center of the heap. On the other hand,
the cow-manure lies cold and dead, and during the winter freezes into
solid lumps.
I wheel or cart all my manure into one central heap. The main object is
to keep it as compact as possible. There are two advantages in this:
1st, the manure is less exposed to the rain, and (2d), when freezing
weather sets in, only a few inches of the external portion of the heap
is frozen. I have practised this plan for several years, and can keep my
heap of manure slowly fermenting during the whole winter.
But in order to ensure this result, it is necessary to begin making the
heap before winter sets in. The plan is this:
Having selected the spot in the yard most convenient for making the
heap, collect all the manure that can be found in the sheepyards, sheds,
cow and horse stables, pig-pens, and hen-house, together with leaves,
weeds, and refuse from the garden, and wheel or cart it to the intended
heap. If you set a farm-man to do the work, tell him you want to make a
hot-bed about five feet high, six feet wide, and six feet long. I do not
think I have ever seen a farm where enough material could not be found,
say in November, to make such a heap. And this is all that is needed. If
the manure is rich, if it is obtained from animals eating clover-hay,
bran, grain, or other food rich in nitrogen, it will soon ferment. But
if the manure is poor, consisting largely of straw, it will be very
desirable to make it richer by mixing with it bone-dust, blood,
hen-droppings, woollen rags, chamber-lye, and animal matter of any kind
that you can find.
The richer you can make the manure, the more readily will it ferment.
A good plan is to take the horse or sheep manure, a few weeks previous,
and use it for bedding the pigs. It will absorb the liquid of the pigs,
and make rich manure, which will soon ferment when placed in a heap.
If the manure in the heap is too dry, it is a good plan, when you are
killing hogs, to throw on to the manure all the warm water, hair, blood,
intestines, etc. You may think I am making too much of such a simple
matter, but I have had letters from farmers who have tried this plan of
managing manure, and they say that they can not keep it from freezing.
One reason for this is, that they do not start the heap early enough,
and do not take pains to get the manure into an active fermentation
before winter sets in. Much depends on this. In starting a fire, you
take pains to get a little fine, dry wood, that will burn readily, and
when the fire is fairly going, put on larger sticks, and presently you
have such a fire that you can burn wood, coal, stubble, sods, or
anything you wish. And so it is with a manure-heap. Get the fire, or
fermentation, or, more strictly speaking, putrefaction fairly started,
and there will be little trouble, if the heap is large enough, and fresh
material is added from time to time, of continuing the fermentation all
winter.
Another point to be observed, and especially in cold weather, is to keep
the sides of the heap straight, and the _top level_. You must expose the
manure in the heap as little as possible to frost and cold winds. The
rule should be to spread every wheel-barrowful of manure as soon as it
is put on the heap. If left unspread on top of the heap, it will freeze;
and if afterwards covered with other manure, it will require
considerable heat to melt it, and thus reduce the temperature of the
whole heap.
It is far less work to manage a heap of manure in this way than may be
supposed from my description of the plan. The truth is, I find, in point
of fact, that it is _not_ an easy thing to manage manure in this way;
and I fear not one farmer in ten will succeed the first winter he
undertakes it, unless he gives it his personal attention. It is well
worth trying, however, because if your heap should freeze up, it will
be, at any rate, in no worse condition than if managed in the ordinary
way; and if you do succeed, even in part, you will have manure in good
condition for immediate use in the spring.
As I have said before, I keep a good many pigs. Now pigs, if fed on
slops, void a large quantity of liquid manure, and it is not always easy
to furnish straw enough to absorb it. When straw and stalks are cut into
chaff, they will absorb much more liquid than when used whole. For this
reason we usually cut all our straw and stalks. We also use the litter
from the horse-stable for bedding the store hogs, and also sometimes,
when comparatively dry, we use the refuse sheep bedding for the same
purpose. Where the sheep barn is contiguous to the pig-pens, and when
the sheep bedding can be thrown at once into the pig-pens or cellar, it
is well to use bedding freely for the sheep and lambs, and remove it
frequently, throwing it into the pig-pens. I do not want my sheep to be
compelled to eat up the straw and corn-stalks too close. I want them to
pick out what they like, and then throw away what they leave in the
troughs for bedding. Sometimes we take out a five-bushel basketful of
these direct from the troughs, for bedding young pigs, or sows and pigs
in the pens, but as a rule, we use them first for bedding the sheep, and
then afterwards use the sheep bedding in the fattening or store
pig-pens.
“And sometimes,” remarked the Deacon, “you use a little long straw for
your young pigs to sleep on, so that they can bury themselves in the
straw and keep warm.”
“True,” I replied, “and it is not a bad plan, but we are not now talking
about the management of pigs, but how we treat our manure, and how we
manage to have it ferment all winter.”
A good deal of our pig-manure is, to borrow a phrase from the
pomologists, “double-worked.” It is horse or sheep-manure, used for
bedding pigs and cows. It is saturated with urine, and is much richer in
nitrogenous material than ordinary manure, and consequently will ferment
or putrefy much more rapidly. Usually pig-manure is considered “cold,”
or sluggish, but this doubleworked pig-manure will ferment even more
rapidly than sheep or horse-manure alone.
Unmixed cow-manure is heavy and cold, and when kept in a heap by itself
out of doors, is almost certain to freeze up solid during the winter.
We usually wheel out our cow-dung every day, and spread on the manure
heap.
This is one of the things that needs attention. There will be a constant
tendency to put all the cow-dung together, instead of mixing it with the
lighter and more active manure from the horses, sheep, and pigs. Spread
it out and cover it with some of the more strawy manure, which is not so
liable to freeze.
Should it so happen--as will most likely be the case--that on looking at
your heap some morning when the thermometer is below zero, you find that
several wheel-barrowfuls of manure that were put on the heap the day
before, were not spread, and are now crusted over with ice, it will be
well to break up the barrowfuls, even if necessary to use a crowbar, and
place the frozen lumps of manure on the outside of the heap, rather than
to let them lie in the center of the pile. Your aim should be always to
keep the center of the heap warm and in a state of fermentation. You do
not want the fire to go out, and it will not go out if the heap is
properly managed, even should all the sides and top be crusted over with
a layer of frozen manure.
During very severe weather, and when the top is frozen, it is a good
plan, when you are about to wheel some fresh manure on to the heap, to
remove a portion of the frozen crust on top of the heap, near the
center, and make a hole for the fresh manure, which should be spread and
covered up.
When the heap is high enough, say five feet, we commence another heap
alongside. In doing this, our plan is to clean out some of the
sheep-sheds or pig-pens, where the manure has accumulated for some time.
This gives us much more than the daily supply. Place this manure on the
outside of the new heap, and then take a quantity of hot, fermenting,
manure from the middle of the old heap, and throw it into the center of
the new heap, and then cover it up with the fresh manure. I would put in
eight or ten bushels, or as much as will warm up the center of the new
heap, and start fermentation. The colder the weather, the more of this
hot manure should you take from the old heap--the more the better. Fresh
manure should be added to the old heap to fill up the hole made by the
removal of the hot manure.
“You draw out a great many loads of manure during the winter,” said the
Deacon, “and pile it in the field, and I have always thought it a good
plan, as you do the work when there is little else to do, and when the
ground is frozen.”
Yes, this is an improvement on my old plan. I formerly used to turn over
the heap of manure in the barn-yard in March, or as soon as fermentation
had ceased.
The object of turning the heap is (1st,) to mix the manure and make it
of uniform quality; (2d,) to break the lumps and make the manure fine;
and (3d,) to lighten up the manure and make it loose, thus letting in
the air and inducing a second fermentation. It is a good plan, and well
repays for the labor. In doing the work, build up the end and sides of
the new heap straight, and keep the top flat. Have an eye on the man
doing the work, and see that he breaks up the manure and mixes it
thoroughly, and that he _goes to the bottom of the heap_.
My new plan that the Deacon alludes to, is, instead of turning the heap
in the yard, to draw the manure from the heap in the yard, and pile it
up in another heap in the field where it is to be used. This has all the
effects of turning, and at the same time saves a good deal of team-work
in the spring.
[Illustration: _A, B, Manure Heaps; C, D, E, Ridges, 2½ ft. apart._]
The location of the manure-heap in the field deserves some
consideration. If the manure is to be used for root-crops or potatoes,
and if the land is to be ridged, and the manure put in the ridges, then
it will be desirable to put the heap on the headland, or, better still,
to make two heaps, one on the headland top of the field, and the other
on the headland at the bottom of the field, as shown in the annexed
engraving.
We draw the manure with a cart, the horse walking between two of the
ridges (D), and the wheels of the cart going in C and E. The manure is
pulled out at the back end of the cart into small heaps, about five
paces apart.
“That is what I object to with you agricultural writers,” said the
Doctor; “you say ‘about five paces,’ and sometimes ‘about five paces’
would mean 4 yards, and sometimes 6 yards; and if you put 10 tons of
manure per acre in the one case, you would put 15 tons in the
other--which makes quite a difference in the dose.”
The Doctor is right. Let us figure a little. If your cart holds 20
bushels, and if the manure weighs 75 lbs. to the bushel, and you wish to
put on 10 tons of manure per acre, or 1,500 bushels, or 13⅓ cart-loads,
then, as there are 43,560 square feet in an acre, you want a bushel of
manure to 29 square feet, or say a space 2 yards long, by nearly 5 feet
wide.
Now, as our ridges are 2½ feet apart, and as our usual plan is to manure
5 ridges at a time, or 12½ feet wide, a load of 20 bushels of manure
will go over a space 46½ feet long, nearly, or say 15½ yards; and so,
a load would make 3 heaps, 15½ feet apart, and there would be 6⅔ bushels
in each heap.
If the manure is to be spread on the surface of the land, there is no
necessity for placing the heap on the headland. You can make the heap or
heaps. --“Where most convenient,” broke in the Deacon. --“No, not by any
means,” I replied; “for if that was the rule, the men would certainly
put the heap just where it happened to be the least trouble for them to
draw and throw off the loads.”
The aim should be to put the heap just where it will require the least
labor to draw the manure on to the land in the spring.
On what we call “rolling,” or hilly land, I would put the heap on the
highest land, so that in the spring the horses would be going down hill
with the full carts or wagons. Of course, it would be very unwise to
adopt this plan if the manure was not drawn from the yards until spring,
when the land was soft; but I am now speaking of drawing out the manure
in the winter, when there is sleighing, or when the ground is frozen. No
farmer will object to a little extra labor for the teams in the winter,
if it will save work and time in the spring.
[Illustration: _Field, 40×20 Rods, showing Position of two Heaps of
Manure, a, a._]
If the land is level, then the heap or heaps should be placed where the
least distance will have to be traveled in drawing the manure from the
heap to the land. If there is only one heap, the best point would be in
the center of the field. If two heaps, and the field is longer than it
is broad, say 20 rods wide, and 40 rods long, then the heaps should be
made as shown on the previous page.
If the field is square, say 40 × 40 rods, and we can have four heaps of
manure, then, other things being equal, the best points for the heaps
are shown in the annexed figure:
[Illustration: _Field, 40×40 Rods, showing Position of four Heaps of
Manure, a, a, a, a._]
Having determined where to make the heaps, the next question is in
regard to size. We make one about 8 feet wide and 6 feet high, the
length being determined by the quantity of the manure we have to draw.
In cold weather, it is well to finish the heap each day as far as you
go, so that the sloping side at the end of the heap will not be frozen
during the night. Build up the sides square, so that the top of the heap
shall be as broad as the bottom. You will have to see that this is done,
for the average farm-man, if left to himself, will certainly narrow up
the heap like the roof of a house. The reason he does this is that he
throws the manure from the load into the center of the heap, and he can
not build up the sides straight and square without getting on to the
heap occasionally, and placing a layer round the outsides. He should be
instructed, too, to break up the lumps, and mix the manure, working it
over until it is loose and fine. It there are any frozen masses of
manure, place them on the east or south outside, and not in the middle
of the heap.
If there is any manure in the sheds, or basements, or cellars, or
pig-pens, clean it out, and draw it at once to the pile in the field,
and mix it with the manure you are drawing from the heap in the yard.
We generally draw with two teams and three wagons. We have one man to
fill the wagon in the yard, and two men to drive and unload. When the
man comes back from the field, he places his empty wagon by the side of
the heap in the yard, and takes off the horses and puts them to the
loaded wagon, and drives to the heap in the field. If we have men and
teams enough, we draw with three teams and three wagons. In this case,
we put a reliable man at the heap, who helps the driver to unload, and
sees that the heap is built properly. The driver helps the man in the
yard to load up. In the former plan, we have two teams and three men; in
the latter case, we have three teams and five men, and as we have two
men loading and unloading, instead of one, we ought to draw out double
the quantity of manure in a day. If the weather is cold and windy, we
put the blankets on the horses under the harness, so that they will not
be chilled while standing at the heap in the yard or field. They will
trot back lively with the empty wagon or sleigh, and the work will
proceed briskly, and the manure be less exposed to the cold.
“You do not,” said the Doctor, “draw the manure on to the heap with a
cart, and dump it, as I have seen it done in England?”
I did so a few years ago, and might do so again if I was piling manure
in the spring, to be kept over summer for use in the fall. The
compression caused by drawing the cart over the manure, has a tendency
to exclude the air and thus retard fermentation. In the winter there is
certainly no necessity for resorting to any means for checking
fermentation. In the spring or summer it may be well to compress the
heap a little, but not more, I think, than can be done by the trampling
of the workman in spreading the manure on the heap.
“You do not,” said the Doctor, “adopt the old-fashioned English plan of
keeping your manure in a basin in the barn-yard, and yet I should think
it has some advantages.”
“I practised it here,” said I, “for some years. I plowed and scraped a
large hole or basin in the yard four or five feet deep, with a gradual
slope at one end for convenience in drawing out the loads--the other
sides being much steeper. I also made a tank at the bottom to hold the
drainage, and had a pump in it to pump the liquid back on to the heap in
dry weather. We threw or wheeled the manure from the stables and
pig-pens into this basin, but I did not like the plan, for two reasons:
(1,) the manure being spread over so large a surface froze during
winter, and (2,) during the spring there was so much water in the basin
that it checked fermentation.”
Now, instead of spreading it all over the basin, we commenced a small
heap on one of the sloping sides of the basin; with a horse and cart we
drew to this heap, just as winter set in, every bit of manure that could
be found on the premises, and everything that would make manure. When
got all together, it made a heap seven or eight feet wide, twenty feet
long, and three or four feet high. We then laid planks on the heap, and
every day, as the pig-pens, cow and horse stables were cleaned out, the
manure was wheeled on to the heap and shaken out and spread about. The
heap soon commenced to ferment, and when the cold weather set in,
although the sides and some parts of the top froze a little, the inside
kept quite warm. Little chimneys were formed in the heap, where the heat
and steam escaped. Other parts of the heap would be covered with a thin
crust of frozen manure. By taking a few forkfuls of the latter, and
placing them on the top of the “chimneys,” they checked the escape of
steam, and had a tendency to distribute the heat to other parts of the
heap. In this way the fermentation became more general throughout all
the mass, and not so violent at any one spot.
“But why be at all this trouble?”--For several reasons. First. It saves
labor in the end. Two hours’ work, in winter, will save three hours’
work in the spring. And three hours’ work in the spring is worth more
than four hours’ work in the winter. So that we save half the expense of
handling the manure. 2d. When manure is allowed to lie scattered about
over a large surface, it is liable to have much of its value washed out
by the rain. In a compact heap of this kind, the rain or snow that falls
on it is not more than the manure needs to keep it moist enough for
fermentation. 3d. There is as much fascination in this fermenting heap
of manure as there is in having money in a savings bank. One is
continually trying to add to it. Many a cart-load or wheel-barrowful of
material will be deposited that would otherwise be allowed to run to
waste. 4th. The manure, if turned over in February or March, will be in
capital order for applying to root crops; or if your hay and straw
contains weed-seeds, the manure will be in good condition to spread as a
top-dressing on grass-land early in the spring. This, I think, is better
than keeping it in the yards all summer, and then drawing it out on the
grass land in September. You gain six months’ or a year’s time. You get
a splendid growth of rich grass, and the red-root seeds will germinate
next September just as well as if the manure was drawn out at that time.
If the manure is drawn out early in the spring, and spread out
immediately, and then harrowed two or three times with a Thomas’
smoothing-harrow, there is no danger of its imparting a rank flavor to
the grass. I know from repeated trials that when part of a pasture is
top-dressed, cows and sheep will keep it much more closely cropped down
than the part which has not been manured. The idea to the contrary
originated from not spreading the manure evenly.
“But why ferment the manure at all? Why not draw it out fresh from the
yards? Does fermentation increase the amount of plant-food in the
manure?”--No. But it renders the plant-food in the manure more
immediately available. It makes it more soluble. We ferment manure for
the same reason that we decompose bone-dust or mineral phosphates with
sulphuric acid, and convert them into superphosphate, or for the same
reason that we grind our corn and cook the meal. These processes add
nothing to the amount of plant-food in the bones or the nutriment in the
corn. They only increase its availability. So in fermenting manure. When
the liquid and solid excrements from well-fed 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.