Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871 [PAGE 238]

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230 of obtaining manures. The term manure is a very indefinite term. We take manure from our barn-yards at different times, and it will vary very much in quality. The value of manure will depend on feed consumed; that is a fact well settled. It is impossible to make a chemical analysis so as to get the value of it. A chemist may take a quantity and tell you what there is in the sample, but he cannot analyze each load that you use. The method I would adopt is this, to take the animals and put them into a pen—into a box-stall—and would have it constructed tight, so there is no chance of losing any of the liquid constituents, and I would feed to the animals a definite amount of food; then I would take the results of these articles of food as we have them furnished by chemists in tables, as the measure of the value. Then take the manure from the box, and put it on the plat. By pursuing this method, you may get a number of boxes of precisely the same strength for all practical purposes. In regard to the experiments which it would be desirable to try, I have mentioned but a few. There are many more that suggest themselves to me, and I speak of these simply for the reason that they seem to me as important as any, and for the further reason that I think they would be as easily tried as any. It does not seem to me best to attempt very complicated experiments at any particular institution until a long experience has been had in experimenting—until the person experimenting becomes thoroughly familiar with all the difficulties in the way. For the feed experiments I would simply try to ascertain the value of Indian corn in its different forms. After this is accomplished we may then take other grain in the same manner. After that I would take the grasses elsewhere. In these experiments it would be desirable to have the same conditions observed by all the experimenters, otherwise the experiments cannot be compared. If I feed corn meal in a particular way in Michigan, and it is fed a different way in Illinois, Missouri or Pennsylvania, we cannot compare results at all. Tou are not assisted in the one place by the investigations made in the other. The experiments must be conducted in all places precisely in the same manner, then you can compare results, bearing in mind that certain conditions which cannot be controlled may influence the result. The next class of experiments I will suggest would be to determine the best methods of applying manure—the application of manure on the surface, and the application so that it may be plowed under; and it would be desirable, likewise, to make experiments with reference to the application of these manures at different seasons; whether it would be best to apply manure in the spring on the surface, or in the fall.