URINE. A saline fluid secreted from the blood of animals by the kidneys, collected in the urinary bladder, and emitted by the canal of the urethra. Urine differs in different animals, and varies in its characters, according to the kind of food employed. The usual salts contained in it are, sulphates, phosphates, and chlorides, all of which are fertilizing substances. The urine of oxen and horses undergoes decomposition less rapidly than that of carnivorous animals. It contains hippurates, but no lithic acid, that substance which forms red gravel in man. Prac tically it is of the most valuable of all man ures, as the following analysis will show . Human urine contains, moo The following table from Sprengel shows the composition of cow's urine, in the first column, when fresh; in the second, when putrefied alone; and in the third column, when putrefied with water. The amount being parts in 100,000.
The next table will show the organic, inor ganic, and total of solid matter in urine of seve eral animals and man, and amount voided in twenty-four hours.
The urine of the horse is the most highly con centrated, that of the cow the most dilute, being double that of man, weight for weight, and twelve times that of the horse, depending, of course, upon the nature of the food used. It will naturally be seen, therefore, that urine should be applied in a very dilute state, since fresh urine is too concentrated to be applied directly to plants, and it is to the urea, which exists in much greater quantity than in other substances, that its fertilizing qualities are prin cipally due. (See also articles Liquid Manure, Manure, and Top Dressing.) URN. The small receptacle of mosses in which the sporules are placed. A vessel.