It is well enough to look some months ahead for the manure needed. Doubly liberal manuring lies at the bottom of big crops. The profit comes from maximum crops ; hence the importance of securing, at reasonable prices, manure that will produce the largest crops. There are differences in value among stable or farm-yard manures. Some farm-yard or stable manure has treble the value of others. We are apt to make a distinction between cow and horse manure, possibly between fresh and rotted manure; but with this we stop. But other points about stable manures are of more importance. One of these is the proportion of urine.

A ton of fresh solid excrement of horses contains 8.8 pounds of nitrogen, 3.4 pounds of phosphoric acid and 7 pounds of potash.' A ton of fresh solid excrement of cattle contains 5.8 pounds of nitrogen, 3.4 pounds of phosphoric acid and 2 pounds of potash. A ton of fresh urine of horses contains 31 pounds of nitrogen and 30 pounds of potash. A ton of fresh urine of cattle contains 11.6 pounds of nitrogen and 9.8 pounds of potash.

It will be seen that, at the commercial values of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, taking the same weights of fresh urine and of fresh solid excrement of horses, the first has six times the value of the latter; and of cattle, nearly four times. It is therefore plain that the greater the proportion of urine, the more valuable the manure. However, in the urine there is no phosphoric acid. This is a sad lack, which, however, can be supplied by the use of some phosphatic fertilizer.

But urine has to the gardener a greater value, compared with solid excrement. The earliest crop brings the best prices ; hence a manure that will make the crop larger and also earlier gives us a double value. Urine does this, for the nitrogen in urine is all in solution, and in a condition fit to be taken up immediately by the plants. Pound for pound, it is fully as valuable as the nitrogen in nitrate of soda. On the other hand, the nitrogen in solid excrement is inferior, since most of it is insoluble and in a condition unassimilable by plants. It is contained chiefly in the undigested, not to say indigestible, portions of the food. Urine is the manure par excellence for the gardener, since it acts at once.

However, we must have a care as to the preservation of the urine. Unless properly managed, no other manure so quickly deteriorates; the nitrogenous components of urine, viz., urea, uric acid and hippuric acid, are precisely those constituents of animal secretions which decompose the first and the easiest. Hence, Professor Storer says that cisterns to hold urine can hardly be profitable. The best way, it seems, in which to preserve the manurial value of urine is to have it absorbed by straw or other litter. This retards its decomposition. When solid excrement, urine and enough litter to absorb the liquid, are mixed together, the mass keeps remarkably well. At the end of five warm months, decomposition had hardly begun in such a heap.

When the gardener can get urine fresh, he can hardly get a manure more "forcing." But otherwise he would better use the urine mixed with litter and solid excrement. And the point for him to remember is that manures from stables where the urine is absorbed and saved is worth to him, pound for pound, far more than manure from stables where the urine is allowed to waste Of great comparative value to the gardener is, also, manure liquor, i. e., the liquid that drains from manure. It is likely that in Switzerland, Holland and Belgium the farmers overrate this fertilizer; but it is nevertheless true that the gardener, even in this country, can use it to advantage and with profit, though he prepares it artificially. In its composition it much resembles urine, as it contains little phosphoric acid and much nitrogen, and also in being liquid. Hence it is a splendid forcing manure; it acts strongly and immediately, and this suggests that its use is to be on crops that are to be hurried to maturity. There is this point in its favor, also, that it is not apt to "burn " crops, as guano does in dry weather.

Volcker found that it was almost twice as concentrated from fresh as from old manure.

S. M. J.