to promote slow decomposition is essential.  It is usually more convenient to compost garden wastes on the surface of the ground, enclosing them with a plank retainer, because moisture can easily be applied with a hose, as desirable, the material can be occasionally forked over to promote decay, and the heavy work of digging material out of a pit is avoided.  Such a collection is neither offensive nor dangerous if handled right.

Composting Manure.

Will the dry barnyard manure, when heaped up and dampened with water, make a valuable fertilizer?

For garden use, dry manure in heaps should be dampened with water from time to time so as to prevent too active fermentation.  Of course, water should not be supplied so freely as to cause a leaching of the pile.  It is also desirable that the material should be forked over from time to time to distribute moisture and promote decay.  When this is done a thoroughly first-class fertilizer is produced.

Barnyard Manure and Alkali.

In spots my land is hard and has some black alkali.  Will barnyard manure help the hard land if cultivated in?

Use stable manure because that would not only furnish nitrogen, if your plants need any more, but it would add coarse material and ultimately humus which would overcome the tendency of your soil to become compact and thus concentrate alkali near the surface by evaporation.  Mellow the soil, increase the humus, make water movement freer and good cultivation easier and alkali will become weaker by distribution through a greater mass of the soil and may be too weak at any point to be troublesome, unless you have too much to start with.  Put on manure at the beginning of the rainy season and plow it under, with all the green stuff which grows upon it, during the winter or early spring.

Stable Manure and Bean Straw.

What are the approximate contents of common stable manure; also, how much of the above is contained in bean straw?

The composition of mixed stable manure is given as containing in one ton:  Nitrogen, 10 pounds; phosphoric acid, 5 pounds; potash, 10 pounds.  The constituents of bean straw in one ton, are given as:  Nitrogen, 28 pounds; phosphoric acid, 6 pounds; potash, 38 pounds; Of course, a large part of the difference in composition is due to the excessive amount of moisture which ordinary stable manure contains.  Air dried stable manure, such as is found in a California corral, would have much higher fertilizing value than such moist manure as an Eastern chemist would be likely to handle.

Roofing a Manure Pit.

Is it necessary to roof a manure pit, if the pit is tight so that all rain on manure is caught in the liquid manure and nothing is lost?