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 youput 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.
rectangular fieldField, 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:
square fieldField, 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. Heshould 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 allowedto 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, unfermentedmanure. 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.
However much farmers may differ in regard to the advantages or disadvantages of fermenting manure, I have never met with one who contended that it was good, either in theory or practice, to leave manure for months, scattered over a barn-yard, exposed to the spring and autumn rains, and to the summer’s sun and wind. All admit that, if it is necessary to leave manure in the yards, it should be either thrown into a basin, or put into a pile or heap, where it will be compact, and not much exposed.
We did not need the experiments of Dr. Vœlcker to convince us that there was great waste in leaving manure exposed to the leaching action of our heavy rains. We did not know exactly how much we lost, but we knew it must be considerable. No one advocates the practice of exposing manure, and it is of no use to discuss the matter. All will admit that it is unwise and wasteful to allow manure to lie scattered and exposed over the barn-yards any longer than is absolutely necessary.
We should either draw it directly to the field and use it, or we should make it into a compact heap, where it will not receive more rain than is needed to keep it moist.
One reason for piling manure, therefore, is to preserve it from loss, until we wish to use it on the land.
“We all admit that,” said the Deacon, “but is there anything actually gained by fermenting it in the heap?”—In one sense, no; but in another, and very important sense, yes. When we cook corn-meal for our little pigs, we add nothing to it. We have no more meal after it is cooked than before. There are no more starch, or oil, or nitrogenous matters in the meal, but we think the pigs can digest the food more readily. And so, in fermentingmanure, we add nothing to it; there is no more actual nitrogen, or phosphoric acid, or potash, or any other ingredient after fermentation than there was before, but these ingredients are rendered more soluble, and can be more rapidly taken up by the plants. In this sense, therefore, there is a great gain.
One thing is certain, we do not, in many cases, get anything like as much benefit from our manure as the ingredients it contains would lead us to expect.
Mr. Lawes, on his clayey soil at Rothamsted, England, has grown over thirty crops of wheat, year after year, on the same land. One plot has received 14 tons of barn-yard manure per acre every year, and yet the produce from this plot is no larger, and, in fact, is frequently much less, than from a few hundred pounds of artificial manure containing far less nitrogen.
For nineteen years, 1852 to 1870, some of the plots have received the same manure year after year. The following shows theaverageyield for the nineteen years:
Mixed mineral manure, alone
Mixed mineral manure, and 200 lbs. ammoniacal salts
Mixed mineral manure, and 400 lbs. ammoniacal salts
Mixed mineral manure, and 550 lbs. nitrate of soda
14 tons farm-yard dung
The 14 tons (31,360 lbs.) of farm-yard manure contained about 8,540 lbs. organic matter, 868 lbs. mineral matter, and 200 lbs. nitrogen. The 400 lbs. of ammoniacal salts, and the 550 lbs. nitrate of soda, each contained 82 lbs. of nitrogen; and it will be seen that this 82 lbs. of nitrogen produced as great an effect as the 200 lbs. of nitrogen in barn-yard manure.
Similar experiments have been made on barley, with even more striking results. The plot dressed with 300 lbs. superphosphate of lime, and 200 lbs. ammoniacal salts per acre, produced as large a crop as 14 tons of farm-yard manure. The average yield of barley for nineteen crops grown on the same land each year was 48 bus. and 28 cwt. of straw per acre on both plots. In other words, 41 lbs. of nitrogen, in ammoniacal salts, produced as great an effect as 200 lbs. of nitrogen in farm-yard manure! During the nineteen years, one plot had received 162,260 lbs. of organic matter, 16,492 lbs. of mineral matter, and 3,800 lbs. of nitrogen; while the other had received only 5,700 lbs. mineral matter, and 779 lbs. of nitrogen—and yet one has produced as large a crop as the other.
Why this difference? It will not do to say that more nitrogen was applied in the farm-yard manure than was needed. Mr. Lawes says: “For some years, an amount of ammonia-salts, containing 82 lbs. of nitrogen, was applied to one series of plots (of barley), but this was found to be too much, the crop generally being too heavy and laid. Yet probably about 200 lbs. of nitrogen was annually supplied in the dung, but with it there was no over-luxuriance, and no more crop, than where 41 lbs. of nitrogen was supplied in the form of ammonia or nitric acid.”
It would seem that there can be but one explanation of these accurately-ascertained facts. The nitrogenous matter in the manure is not in an available condition. It is in the manure, but the plants can not take it up until it is decomposed and rendered soluble. Dr. Vœlcker analyzed “perfectly fresh horse-dung,” and found that offreeammonia there was not more than one pound in 15 tons! And yet these 15 tons contained nitrogen enough to furnish 140 lbs. of ammonia.
“But,” it may be asked, “will not this fresh manure decompose in the soil, and furnish ammonia?” In light, sandy soil, I presume it will do so to a considerable extent. We know that clay mixed with manure retards fermentation, but sand mixed with manure accelerates fermentation. This, at any rate, is the case when sand is added in small quantities to a heap of fermenting manure. But I do not suppose it would have the same effect when a small quantity of manure is mixed with a large amount of sand, as is the case when manure is applied to land, and plowed under. At any rate, practical farmers, with almost entire unanimity, think well-rotted manure is better for sandy land than fresh manure.
As to how rapidly, or rather how slowly, manure decomposes in a rather heavy loamy soil, the above experiments of Mr. Lawes afford very conclusive, but at the same time very discouraging evidence. During the 19 years, 3,800 lbs. of nitrogen, and 16,492 lbs. of mineral matter, in the form of farm-yard manure, were applied to an acre of land, and the 19 crops of barley in grain and straw removed only 3,724 lbs. of mineral matter, and 1,064 lbs. of nitrogen. The soil now contains, unless it has drained away, 1,736 lbs. more nitrogen per acre than it did when the experiments commenced. And yet 41 lbs. of nitrogen in anavailable conditionis sufficient to produce a good large crop of barley, and 82 lbs. per acre furnished more than the plants could organize.
“Those are very interesting experiments,” said the Doctor, “and show why it is that our farmers can afford to pay a higher price for nitrogen and phosphoric acid in superphosphate, and other artificialmanures, than for the same amount of nitrogen and phosphoric acid in stable-manure.”
We will not discuss this point at present. What I want to ascertain is, whether we can not find some method of making our farm-yard manure more readily available. Piling it up, and letting it ferment, is one method of doing this, though I think other methods will yet be discovered. Possibly it will be found that spreading well-rotted manure on the surface of the land will be one of the most practical and simplest methods of accomplishing this object.
“We pile the manure, therefore,” said Charley, “first, because we do not wish it to lie exposed to the rain in the yards, and, second, because fermenting it in the heap renders it more soluble, and otherwise more available for the crops, when applied to the land.”
That is it exactly, and another reason for piling manure is, that the fermentation greatly reduces its bulk, and we have less labor to perform in drawing it out and spreading it. Ellwanger & Barry, who draw several thousand loads of stable-manure every year, and pile it up to ferment, tell me that it takes three loads of fresh manure to make one load of rotted manure. This, of course, has reference to bulk, and not weight. Three tons of fresh barn-yard manure, according to the experiments of Dr. Vœlcker, will make about two tons when well rotted. Even this is a great saving of labor, and the rotted manure can be more easily spread, and mixed more thoroughly with the soil—a point of great importance.
“Another reason for fermenting manure,” said the Squire, “is the destruction of weed-seeds.”
“That is true,” said I, “and a very important reason; but I try not to think about this method of killing weed-seeds. It is a great deal better to kill the weeds. There can be no doubt that a fermenting manure-heap will kill many of the weed-seeds, but enough will usually escape to re-seed the land.”
It is fortunate, however, that the best means to kill weed-seeds in the manure, are also the best for rendering the manure most efficient. I was talking to John Johnston on this subject a few days ago. He told me how he piled manure in his yards.
“I commence,” he said, “where the heap is intended to be, and throw the manure on one side, until the bare ground is reached.”
“What is the use of that?” I asked.
“If you do not do so,” he replied, “there will be some portion ofthe manure under the heap that will be so compact that it will not ferment, and the weed-seeds will not be killed.”
“You think,” said I, “that weed-seeds can be killed in this way?”
“I know they can,” he replied, “but the heap must be carefully made, so that it will ferment evenly, and when the pile is turned, the bottom and sides should be thrown into the center of the heap.”
If you throw a quantity of fresh horse-manure into a loose heap, fermentation proceeds with great rapidity. Much heat is produced, and if the manure is under cover, or there is not rain enough to keep the heap moist, the manure will “fire-fang” and a large proportion of the carbonate of ammonia produced by the fermentation will escape into the atmosphere and be lost.
As I have said before, we use our horse-manure for bedding the store and fattening pigs. We throw the manure every morning and evening, when the stable is cleaned out, into an empty stall near the door of the stable, and there it remains until wanted to bed the pigs. We find it is necessary to remove it frequently, especially in the summer, as fermentation soon sets in, and the escape of the ammonia is detected by its well known pungent smell. Throw this manure into the pig-cellar and let the pigs trample it down, and there is no longer any escape of ammonia. At any rate, I have never perceived any. Litmus paper will detect ammonia in an atmosphere containing only one seventy-five thousandth part of it; and, as Prof. S. W. Johnson once remarked, “It is certain that a healthy nose is not far inferior in delicacy to litmus paper.” I feel sure that no ammonia escapes from this horse-manure after it is trampled down by the pigs, although it contains an additional quantity of “potential ammonia” from the liquid and solid droppings of these animals.
Water has a strong attraction for ammonia. One gallon of ice-cold water will absorb 1,150 gallons of ammonia.
If the manure, therefore, is moderately moist, the ammonia is not likely to escape. Furthermore, as Dr. Vœlcker has shown us, during the fermentation of the manure in a heap, ulmic and humic, crenic andapocrenicacids are produced, and these unite with the ammonia and “fix” it—in other words, they change it from a volatile gas into a non-volatile salt.
If the heap of manure, therefore, is moist enough and large enough, all the evidence goes to show, that there is little or no loss of ammonia. If the centre of the heap gets so hot and so dry that the ammonia is not retained, there is still no necessity for loss.
The sides of the heap are cool and moist, and will retain the carbonate of ammonia, the acids mentioned also coming into play.
The ammonia is much more likely to escape from the top of the heap than from the sides. The heat and steam form little chimneys, and when a fermenting manure-heap is covered with snow, these little chimneys are readily seen. If you think the manure is fermenting too rapidly, and that the ammonia is escaping, trample the manure down firmly about the chimneys, thus closing them up, and if need be, or if convenient, throw more manure on top, or throw on a few pailfuls of water.
It is a good plan, too, where convenient, to cover the heap with soil. I sometimes do this when piling manure in the field, not from fear of losing ammonia, but in order to retain moisture in the heap. With proper precautions, I think we may safely dismiss the idea of any serious loss of ammonia from fermenting manure.
As we have endeavored to show, there is little danger of losing ammonia by keeping and fermenting manure. But this is not the only question to be considered. We have seen that in 10,000 lbs. of fresh farm-yard manure, there is about 64 lbs. of nitrogen. Of this, about 15 lbs. are soluble, and 49 lbs. insoluble. Of mineral matter, we have in this quantity of manure, 559 lbs., of which 154 lbs. are soluble in water, and 405 lbs. insoluble. If we had a heap of five tons of fermenting manure in a stable, the escape of half an ounce of carbonate of ammonia would make a tremendous smell, and we should at once use means to check the escape of this precious substance. But it will be seen that we have in this five tons of fresh manure, nitrogenous matter, capable of forming over 180 lbs. of carbonate of ammonia, over 42 lbs. of which is in a soluble condition. This may be leached day after day, slowly and imperceptibly, with no heat, or smell, to attract attention.
How often do we see manure lying under the eaves of an unspouted shed or barn, where one of our heavy showers will saturate it in a few minutes, and yet where it will lie for hours, and days, and weeks, until it would seem that a large proportion of its soluble matter would be washed out of it! The loss is unquestionably very great, and would be greater if it were not for the coarse nature of the material, which allows the water to pass through it rapidly and without coming in direct contact with only the outside portions of the particles of hay, straw, etc., of which the manure is largely composed. If the manure was ground up very fine, as it would be when prepared for analysis, the loss ofsoluble matter would be still more serious. Or, if the manure was first fermented, so that the particles of matter would be more or less decomposed and broken up fine, the rain would wash out a large amount of soluble matter, and prove much more injurious than if the manure was fresh and unfermented.
“That is an argument,” said the Deacon, “against your plan of piling and fermenting manure.”
“Not at all,” I replied; “it is a strong reason for not letting manure lie under the eaves of an unspouted building—especiallygoodmanure, that is made from rich food. The better the manure, the more it will lose from bad management. I have never recommended any one to pile their manure where it would receive from ten to twenty times as much water as would fall on the surface of the heap.”
“But you do recommend piling manure and fermenting it in the open air and keeping the top flat, so that it will catch all the rain, and I think your heaps must sometimes get pretty well soaked.”
“Soaking the heap of manure,” I replied, “does not wash out any of its soluble matter,providedyou carry the matter no further than the point of saturation. The water may, and doubtless does, wash out the soluble matter from some portions of the manure, but if the water does not filter through the heap, but is all absorbed by the manure, there is no loss. It is when the water passes through the heap that it runs away with our soluble nitrogenous and mineral matter, and with any ready formed ammonia it may find in the manure.”
How to keep cows tied up in the barn, and at the same time save all the urine, is one of the most difficult problems I have to deal with in the management of manure on my farm. The best plan I have yet tried is, to throw horse-manure, or sheep-manure, back of the cows, where it will receive and absorb the urine. The plan works well, but it is a question of labor, and the answer will depend on the arrangement of the buildings. If the horses are kept near the cows, it will be little trouble to throw the horse-litter, every day, under or back of the cows.
In my own case, my cows are kept in a basement, with a tight barn-floor overhead. When this barn-floor is occupied with sheep, we keep them well-bedded with straw, and it is an easy matter to throw this soiled bedding down to the cow-stable below, where it is used to absorb the urine of the cows, and is then wheeled out to the manure-heap in the yard.
At other times, we use dry earth as an absorbent.
Farms devoted principally to dairying ought to be richer and more productive than farms largely devoted to the production of grain.
Nearly all the produce of the farm is used to feed the cows, and little is sold but milk, or cheese, or butter.
When butter alone is sold, there ought to be no loss of fertilizing matter—as pure butter or oil contains no nitrogen, phosphoric acid, or potash. It contains nothing but carbonaceous matter, which can be removed from the farm without detriment.
And even in the case of milk, or cheese, the advantage is all on the side of the dairyman, as compared with the grain-grower. A dollar’s worth of milk or cheese removes far less nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, than a dollar’s worth of wheat or other grain. Five hundred lbs. of cheese contains about 25 lbs. of nitrogen, and 20 lbs. of mineral matter. A cow that would make this amount of cheese would eat not less than six tons of hay, or its equivalent in grass or grain, in a year. And this amount of food, supposing it to be half clover and half ordinary meadow-hay, would contain 240 lbs. of nitrogen and 810 lbs. of mineral matter. In other words, a cow eats 240 lbs. of nitrogen, and 25 lbs. are removed in the cheese, or not quite 10½ per cent, and of mineral matter not quite 2½ per cent is removed. If it takes three acres to produce this amount of food, there will be 8⅓ lbs. of nitrogen removed by the cheese, per acre, while 30 bushels of wheat would remove in the grain 32 lbs. of nitrogen, and 10 to 15 lbs. in the straw. So that a crop of wheat removes from five to six times as much nitrogen per acre as a crop of cheese; and the removal of mineral matter in cheese is quite insignificant as compared with the amount removed in a crop of wheat or corn. If our grain-growing farmers can keep up the fertility of their land, as they undoubtedly can, the dairymen ought to be making theirs richer and more productive every year.
“All that is quite true,” said the Doctor, “and yet from what I have seen and heard, the farms in the dairy districts, do not, as a rule, show any rapid improvement. In fact, we hear it often alleged that the soil is becoming exhausted of phosphates, and that the quantity and quality of the grass is deteriorating.”
“There may be some truth in this,” said I, “and yet I will hazard the prediction that in no other branch of agriculture shall we witness a more decided improvement during the next twenty-five years than on farms largely devoted to the dairy. Grain-growing farmers, like our friend the Deacon, here, who sells his grain and never brings home a load of manure, and rarely buys even a ton of bran to feed to stock, and who sells more or less hay, must certainly be impoverishing their soils of phosphates much more rapidly than the dairyman who consumes nearly all his produce on the farm, and sells little except milk, butter, cheese, young calves, and old cows.”
“Bones had a wonderful effect,” said the Doctor, “on the old pastures in the dairy district of Cheshire in England.”
“Undoubtedly,” I replied, “and so they will here, and so would well-rotted manure. There is nothing in this fact to prove that dairying specially robs the soil of phosphates. It is not phosphates that the dairyman needs so much as richer manure.”
“What would you add to the manure to make it richer?” asked the Doctor.
“Nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash,” I replied.
“But how?” asked the Deacon.
“I suppose,” said the Doctor, “by buying guano and the German potash salts.”
“That would be a good plan,” said I; “but I would do it by buying bran, mill-feed, brewer’s-grains, malt-combs, corn-meal, oil-cake, or whatever was best and cheapest in proportion to value. Bran or mill-feed can often be bought at a price at which it will pay to use it freely for manure. A few tons of bran worked into a pile of cow-dung would warm it up and add considerably to its value. It would supply the nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, in which ordinary manure is deficient. In short, it would convert poor manure into rich manure.”
“Well, well,” exclaimed the Deacon, “I knew you talked of mixing dried-blood and bone-dust with your manure, but I did not think you would advocate anything quite so extravagant as taking good, wholesome bran and spout-feed and throwing it on to your manure-pile.”
“Why, Deacon,” said I, “we do it every day. I am putting about a ton of spout-feed, malt-combs and corn-meal each week into my manure-pile, and that is the reason why it ferments so readily even in the winter. It converts my poor manure into good, rich, well-decomposed dung, one load of which is worth three loads of your long, strawy manure.”
“Do you not wet it and let it ferment before putting it in the pile?”
“No, Deacon,” said I, “I feed the bran, malt-combs and corn-meal to the cows, pigs, and sheep, and let them do the mixing. They work it up fine, moisten it, break up the particles, take out the carbonaceous matter, which we do not need for manure, and the cows and sheep and horses mix it up thoroughly with the hay, straw, and corn-stalks, leaving the whole in just the right condition to put into a pile to ferment or to apply directly to the land.”
“Oh! I see,” said the Deacon, “I did not think you used bran for manure.”
“Yes, I do, Deacon,” said I, “but I use it for foodfirst, and this is precisely what I would urge you and all others to do. I feel sure that our dairymen can well afford to buy more mill-feed, corn-meal, oil-cake, etc., and mix it with their cow-dung—or rather, let the cows do the mixing.”
I wrote to the Hon. Harris Lewis, the well-known dairyman of Herkimer Co., N.Y., asking him some questions in regard to making and managing manure on dairy farms. The questions will be understood from the answers. He writes as follows:
“My Friend Harris.—This being the first leisure time I have had since the receipt of your last letter, I devote it to answering your questions:
“1st. I have no manure cellar.
“I bed my cows with dry basswood sawdust, saving all the liquid manure, keeping the cows clean, and the stable odors down to a tolerable degree. This bedding breaks up the tenacity of the cow-manure, rendering it as easy to pulverize and manage as clear horse-manure. I would say it is just lovely to bed cows with dry basswood sawdust. This manure, if left in a large pile, will ferment and burn like horse-manure in about 10 days. Hence I draw it out as made where I desire to use it, leaving it in small heaps, convenient to spread.
“My pigs and calves are bedded with straw, and this is piled and rotted before using.
“I use most of my manure on grass land, and mangels, some on corn and potatoes; but it pays me best, when in proper condition, to apply all I do not need for mangels, on meadow and pasture.
“Forty loads, or about 18 to 20 cords is a homœopathic dose for an acre, and this quantity, or more, applied once in three years to grass land, agrees with it first rate.
“The land where I grow mangels gets about this dose every year.
“I would say that my up-land meadows have been mown twice each year for a great many years.
“I have been using refuse salt from Syracuse, on my mangels, at the rate of about six bushels per acre, applied broadcast in two applications. My hen-manure is pulverized, and sifted through a common coal sieve. The fine I use for dusting the mangels after they have been singled out, and the lumps, if any, are used to warm up the red peppers.
“I have sometimes mixed my hen-manure with dry muck, in the proportion of one bushel of hen-manure to 10 of muck, and received a profit from it too big to tell of, on corn, and on mangels.
“I have sprinkled the refuse salt on my cow-stable floors sometimes, but where all the liquid is saved, I think we have salt enough for most crops.
“I have abandoned the use of plaster on my pastures for the reason that milk produced on green-clover is not so good as that produced on the grasses proper. I use all the wood ashes I can get, on my mangels as a duster, and consider their value greater than the burners do who sell them to me for 15 cts. a bushel. I have never used much lime, and have not received the expected benefits from its use so far. But wood ashes agree with my land as well as manure does. The last question you ask, but one, is this: ‘What is the usual plan of managing manure in the dairy districts?’ The usual method is to cut holes in the sides of the stable, about every ten feet along the whole length of the barn behind the cows, and pitch the manure out through these holes, under the eaves of the barn, where it remains until too much in the way, when it is drawn out and commonly applied to grass land in lumps as big as your head. This practice is getting out of fashion a little now, but nearly one-half of all the cow-manure made in Herkimer Co. is lost, wasted.
“Your last question, ‘What improvement would you suggest,’ I answer by saying it is of no use to make any to these men, it would be wasted like their manure.
“The market value of manure in this county is 50 cts. per big load, or about one dollar per cord.”
“That is a capital letter,” said the Deacon. “It is right to the point, and no nonsense about it.”
“He must make a good deal of manure,” said the Doctor, “to be able to use 40 loads to the acre on his meadows andpastures once in three years, and the same quantity every year on his field of mangel-wurzel.”
“That is precisely what I have been contending for,” I replied; “the dairymencanmake large quantities of manure if they make an effort to do it, and their farms ought to be constantly improving. Two crops of hay on the same meadow, each year, will enable a farmer to keep a large herd of cows, and make a great quantity of manure—and when you have once got the manure, there is no difficulty in keeping up and increasing the productiveness of the land.”
“You are right,” said the Doctor, “in saying that there is no difficulty in keeping up and increasing the productiveness of our dairy farms, when you have once got plenty of manure—but the difficulty is to get a good supply of manure to start with.”
This is true, and it is comparatively slow work to bring up a farm, unless you have plenty of capital and can buy all the artificial manure you want. By the free use of artificial manures, you could make a farm very productive in one or two years. But the slower and cheaper method will be the one adopted by most of our young and intelligent dairymen. Few of us are born with silver spoons in our mouths. We have to earn our money before we can spend it, and we are none the worse for the discipline.
Suppose a young man has a farm of 100 acres, devoted principally to dairying. Some of the land lies on a creek or river, while other portions are higher and drier. In the spring of the year, a stream of water runs through a part of the farm from the adjoining hills down to the creek or river. The farm now supports ten head of cows, three horses, half a dozen sheep, and a few pigs. The land is worth $75 per acre, but does not pay the interest on half that sum. It is getting worse instead of better. Weeds are multiplying, and the more valuable grasses are dying out. What is to be done?
In the first place, let it be distinctly understood that the land isnotexhausted. As I have before said, the productiveness of a farm does not depend so much on the absolute amount of plant-food which the soil contains, as on the amount of plant-food which is immediately available for the use of the plants. An acre of land that produces half a ton of hay, may contain as much plant-food as an acre that produces three tons of hay. In the one case the plant-food is locked up in such a form that the crops cannot absorb it, while in the other it is in an available condition. I have no doubt there are fields on the farm I am alluding to, that contain3,000 lbs. of nitrogen, and an equal amount of phosphoric acid, per acre, in the first six inches of the surface soil. This is as much nitrogen as is contained in 100 tons of meadow-hay, and more phosphoric acid than is contained in 350 tons of meadow-hay. These are the two ingredients on which the fertility of our farms mainly depend. And yet there are soils containing this quantity of plant-food that do not produce more than half a ton of hay per acre.
In some fields, or parts of fields, the land is wet and the plants cannot take up the food, even while an abundance of it is within reach. The remedy in this case is under-draining. On other fields, the plant-food is locked up in insoluble combinations. In this case we must plow up the soil, pulverize it, and expose it to the oxygen of the atmosphere. We must treat the soil as my mother used to tell me to treat my coffee, when I complained that it was not sweet enough. “I put plenty of sugar in,” she said, “and if you will stir it up, the coffee will be sweeter.” The sugar lay undissolved at the bottom of the cup; and so it is with many of our soils. There is plenty of plant-food in them, but it needs stirring up. They contain, it may be, 3,000 lbs. of nitrogen, and other plant-food in still greater proportion, and we are only getting a crop that contains 18 lbs. of nitrogen a year, and of this probably the rain supplies 9 lbs. Let us stir up the soil and see if we cannot set 100 lbs. of this 3,000 lbs. of nitrogen free, and get three tons of hay per acre instead of half a ton. There are men who own a large amount of valuable property in vacant city lots, who do not get enough from them to pay their taxes. If they would sell half of them, and put buildings on the other half, they might soon have a handsome income. And so it is with many farmers. They have the elements of 100 tons of hay lyingdormantin every acre of their land, while they are content to receive half a ton a year. They have property enough, but it is unproductive, while they pay high taxes for the privilege of holding it, and high wages for the pleasure of boarding two or three hired men.
We have, say, 3,000 lbs. of nitrogen locked up in each acre of our soil, and we get 8 or 10 lbs. every year in rain and dew, and yet, practically, all that we want, to make our farms highly productive, is 100 lbs. of nitrogen per acre per annum. And furthermore, it should be remembered, that to keep our farms rich, after we have once got them rich, it is not necessary to develope this amount of nitrogen from the soil every year. In the case of clover-hay, the entire loss of nitrogen in the animal and in the milk would not exceed 15 per cent, so that, when we feed out100 lbs. of nitrogen, we have 85 lbs. left in the manure. We want to develope 100 lbs. of nitrogen in the soil, to enable us to raise a good crop to start with, and when this is once done, an annual development of 15 lbs. per acre in addition to the manure, would keep up the productiveness of the soil. Is it not worth while, therefore, to make an earnest effort to get started?—to get 100 lbs. of nitrogen in the most available condition in the soil?
As I said before, this is practically all that is needed to give us large crops. This amount of nitrogen represents about twelve tons of average barn-yard manure—that is to say, twelve tons contains 100 lbs. of nitrogen. But in point of fact it is not in an immediately available condition. It would probably take at least two years before all the nitrogen it contains would be given up to the plants. We want, therefore, in order to give us a good start, 24 tons of barn-yard manure on every acre of land. How to get this is the great problem which our young dairy farmer has to solve. In the grain-growing districts we get it in part by summer-fallowing, and I believe the dairyman might often do the same thing with advantage. A thorough summer-fallow would not only clean the land, but would render some of the latent plant-food available. This will be organized in the next crop, and when the dairyman has once got the plant-food, he has decidedly the advantage over the grain-growing farmer in his ability to retain it. He need not lose over 16 per cent a year of nitrogen, and not one per centof the other elements of plant-food.
The land lying on the borders of the creek could be greatly benefited by cutting surface ditches to let off the water; and later, probably it will be found that a few underdrains can be put in to advantage. These alluvial soils on the borders of creeks and rivers are grand sources of nitrogen and other plant-food. I do not know the fact, but it is quite probable that the meadows which Harris Lewis mows twice a year, are on the banks of the river, and are perhaps flooded in the spring. But, be this as it may, there is a field on the farm I am alluding to, lying on the creek, which now produces a bountiful growth of weeds, rushes, and coarse grasses, which I am sure could easily be made to produce great crops of hay. The creek overflows in the spring, and the water lies on some of the lower parts of the field until it is evaporated. A few ditches would allow all the water to pass off, and this alone would be a great improvement. If the field was flooded in May or June, and thoroughly cultivated and harrowed, the sod would be sufficiently rotted to plow again in August. Then a thorough harrowing, rolling, and cultivating, would make it as mellow as a garden,and it could be seeded down with timothy and other good grasses the last of August, or beginning of September, and produce a good crop of hay the next year. Or, if thought better, it might be sown to rye and seeded down with it. In either case the land would be greatly improved, and would be a productive meadow or pasture for years to come—or until our young dairyman could afford to give it one of Harris Lewis’ “homœopathic” doses of 40 loads of good manure per acre. He would then be able to cut two crops of hay a year—and such hay! But we are anticipating.
That stream which runs through the farm in the spring, and then dries up, could be made to irrigate several acres of the land adjoining. This would double, or treble, or quadruple, (“hold on,” said the Deacon,) the crops of grass as far as the water reached. The Deacon does not seem to credit this statement; but I have seen wonderful effects produced by such a plan.
What I am endeavoring to show, is, that these and similar means will give us larger crops of hay and grass, and these in turn will enable us to keep more cows, and make more manure, and the manure will enable us to grow larger crops on other portions of the farm.
I am aware that many will object to plowing up old grass land, and I do not wish to be misunderstood on this point. If a farmer has a meadow that will produce two or three tons of hay, or support a cow, to the acre, it would be folly to break it up. It is already doing all, or nearly all, that can be asked or desired. But suppose you have a piece of naturally good land that does not produce a ton of hay per acre, or pasture a cow on three acres, if such land can be plowed without great difficulty, I would break it up as early in the fall as possible, and summer-fallow it thoroughly, and seed it down again, heavily, with grass seeds the next August. If the land does not need draining, it will not forget this treatment for many years, and it will be the farmer’s own fault if it ever runs down again.
In this country, where wages are so high, we must raise large crops per acre, or not raise any. Where land is cheap, it may sometimes pay to compel a cow to travel over three or four acres to get her food, but we cannot afford to raise our hay in half ton crops; it costs too much to harvest them. High wages, high taxes, and high-priced land, necessitate high farming; and by high farming, I mean growing large crops every year, and on every portion of the farm; but high wages andlow-priced landdo not necessarily demand high farming. If the land is cheap we can suffer it to lie idle without much loss. But when weraisecrops, whether on high-pricedland or on low-priced land, we must raise good crops, or the expense of cultivating and harvesting them will eat up all the profits. In the dairy districts, I believe land, in proportion to its quality and nearness to market, commands a higher price than land in the grain-growing districts. Hence it follows that high farming should be the aim of the American dairyman.
I am told that there are farms in the dairy districts of this State worth from one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars per acre, on which a cow to four acres for the year is considered a good average. At a meeting of the Little Falls Farmers’ Club, the Hon. Josiah Shull, gave a statement of the receipts and expenses of his farm of 81½ acres. The farm cost $130 per acre. He kept twenty cows, and fatted one for beef. The receipts were as follows:
Twenty cows yielding 8,337 lbs. of cheese, at about 14¼ cents per pound
Increase on beef cow
Total receipts
Boy, six months and board
Man by the year, and board
Carting milk and manufacturing cheese
Total cost of labor
Fertilizers, plants, etc.
Horse-shoeing and other repairs of farming implements, (which is certainly pretty cheap,)
Wear and tear of implements
Average repairs of place and buildings
Average depreciation and interest on stock
Incidentals, (also pretty low,)
Total receipts
Total expenses
This statement, it is said, the Club considered a very fair estimate.
Now, here is a farm costing $10,595, the receipts from which, saying nothing about interest, are less than the expenses. And if you add two cents per pound more to the price of the cheese, the profit would still be only about $50 per year. The trouble is not so much in the low price of cheese,as in the low product per acre. I know some grain-growing farmers who have done no better than this for a few years past.
Mr. Shull places the annual depreciation and interest on stock at $180, equal to nearly one-seventh of the total receipts of the farm. It would pay the wages and board of another man for six months.Can not it be avoided? Good beef is relatively much higher in this State than good cheese. Some of the dairy authorities tell us that cheese is the cheapest animal food in the world, while beef is the dearest. Why, then, should our dairymen confine their attention to the production of the cheapest of farm products, and neglect almost entirely the production of the dearest? If beef is high and cheese low, why not raise more beef? On low-priced land it may be profitable to raise and keep cows solely for the production of cheese, and when the cows are no longer profitable for this purpose, to sacrifice them—to throw them aside as we do a worn-out machine. And in similar circumstances we may be able to keep sheep solely for their wool, but on high-priced land we can not afford to keep sheep merely for their wool. We must adopt a higher system of farming and feeding, and keep sheep that will give us wool, lambs, and mutton. In parts of South America, where land costs nothing, cattle can be kept for their bones, tallow, and hides, but where food is costly we must make better use of it. A cow is a machine for converting vegetable food into veal, butter, cheese, and beef. The first cost of the machine, if a good one, is considerable—say $100. This machine has to be kept running night and day, summer and winter, week days and Sundays. If we were running a steam-flouring mill that could never be allowed to stop, we should be careful to lay in a good supply of coal and also have plenty of grain on hand to grind, so that the mill would never have to run empty. No sensible man would keep up steam merely to run the mill. He would want to grind all the time, and as much as possible; and yet coal is a much cheaper source of power than the hay and corn with which we run our milk-producing machine. How often is the latter allowed to run empty? The machine is running night and day—must run, but is it always running to advantage? Do we furnish fuel enough to enable it to do full work, or only little more than enough to run the machinery?
“What has all this to do with making manure on dairy farms?” asked the Deacon; “you are wandering from the point.”
“I hope not; I am trying to show that good feeding will pay better than poor feeding—and better food means better manure.”
I estimate that it takes from 15 to 18 lbs. of ordinary hay per day to run this cow-machine, which we have been talking about, even when kept warm and comfortable; and if exposed to cold storms, probably not less than 20 lbs. of hay a day, or its equivalent, and this merely to keep the machine running, without doing any work. It requires this to keep the cow alive, and to preventher losing flesh. If not supplied with the requisite amount of food for this purpose, she will take enough fat and flesh from her own body to make up the deficiency; and if she cannot get it, the machine will stop—in other words, the cow will die.
We have, then, a machine that costs say $100; that will last on an average eight years; that requires careful management; that must have constant watching, or it will be liable to get out of order, and that requires, merely to keep it running, say 20 lbs. of hay per day. Now, what do we get in return? If we furnish only 20 lbs. of hay per day we get—nothingexcept manure. If we furnish 25 lbs. of hay per day, or its equivalent, we get, say half a pound of cheese per day. If we furnish 30 lbs. we get one pound of cheese per day, or 365 lbs. a year. We may not get the one pound of cheese every day in the year; sometimes the cow, instead of giving milk, is furnishing food for her embryo calf, or storing up fat and flesh; and this fat and flesh will be used by and by to produce milk. But it all comes from the food eaten by the cow; and is equal to one pound of cheese per day for 30 lbs. of hay or its equivalent consumed; 20 lbs. of hay gives us nothing; 25 lbs. of hay gives us half a pound of cheese, or 40 lbs. of cheese from one ton of hay; 30 lbs. gives us one pound, or 66⅔ lbs. of cheese from one ton of hay; 35 lbs. gives us 1½ lbs., or 85 5/7 lbs. of cheese to one ton of hay; 40 lbs. gives us 2 lbs. of cheese, or 100 lbs. of cheese from one ton of hay; 45 lbs. gives us 2⅓ lbs. of cheese, or 111 lbs. of cheese from one ton of hay; 50 lbs. gives us 3 lbs. of cheese, or 120 lbs. of cheese from one ton of hay.
On this basis, one ton of hay,in excess of the amount required to keep up the animal heat and sustain the vital functions, gives us 200 lbs. of cheese. The point I wish to illustrate by these figures, which are of course hypothetical, is, that it is exceedingly desirable to get animals that will eat, digest, and assimilate a large amount of food, over and above that required to keep up the heat of the body and sustain the vital functions. When a cow eats only 25 lbs. of hay a day, it requires one ton of hay to produce 40 lbs. of cheese. But if we could induce her to eat, digest, and assimilate 50 lbs. a day, one ton would produce 120 lbs. of cheese. If a cow eats 33 lbs. of hay per day, or its equivalent in grass, it will require four acres of land, with a productive capacity equal to 1½ tons of hay per acre, to keep her a year. Such a cow, according to the figures given above, will produce 401½ lbs. of cheese a year, or its equivalent in growth. A farm of 80 acres, on this basis, would support 20 cows, yielding,say 8,000 lbs. of cheese. Increase the productive power of the farm one half, (I hope the Deacon has not gone to sleep), and keep 20 cows that will eat half as much again food, and we should then get 21,600 lbs. of cheese. If cheese is worth 15 cents per lb., a farm of 80 acres, producing 1½ tons of hay, or its equivalent, per acre, and supporting 20 cows, would give us a gross return of $1,204.50. The same farm so improved as to produce 2¼ tons of hay or its equivalent, per acre—fed to 20 cowscapable of eating, digesting, and assimilating it—would give a gross return of $3,240.
In presenting these figures, I hope you will not think me a visionary. I do not think it is possible to get a cow to produce 3 lbs. of cheese a day throughout the whole year. But I do think it quite possible to so breed and feed a cow that she will produce 3 lbs. of cheese per day,or its equivalentin veal, flesh, or fat. We frequently have cows that produce 3 lbs. of cheese a day for several weeks; and a cowcanbe so fed that she will produce 3 lbs. of cheese a day without losing weight. And if she can extract this amount of matter out of the food for a part of the year, why can not she do so for the whole year? Are the powers of digestion weaker in the fall and winter than in spring and summer? If not, we unquestionably sustain great loss by allowing this digestive power to run to waste. This digestive power costs us 20 lbs. of hay a day. We can ill afford to let it lie dormant. But the Deacon will tell me that the cows are allowed all the food they will eat, winter and summer. Then we must, if they have digestive power to spare, endeavor topersuadethem to eat more. If they eat as much hay or grass as their stomachs are capable of holding, we must endeavor to give them richer hay or grass. Not one farmer in a thousand seems to appreciate the advantage of having hay or grass containing a high percentage of nutriment. I have endeavored to show that a cow eating six tons of hay, or its equivalent, in a year, would produce 400 lbs. of cheese, worth $60. While a cow capable of eating, digesting, and turning to good account, nine tons of hay, or its equivalent, would produce 1,090 lbs. of cheese, or its equivalent in other products, worth $162.
“I am sorry to interrupt the gentleman,” said the Deacon with mock gravity.
“Then pray don’t,” said I; “I will not detain you long, and the subject is one which ought to interest you and every other farmer who keeps his cows on poor grass in summer, and corn-stalks and straw in winter.”
I was going to say, when the Deacon interrupted me, that thestomach of a cow may not allow her to eat nine tons of hay a year, but it will allow her to eat six tons; and if these six tons contain as much nutriment as the nine tons, what is the real difference in its value? Ordinarily we should probably estimate the one at $10 per ton, and the other at $15. But according to the above figures, one is worth $10 per ton and the other $27. To get rich grass, therefore, should be the aim of the American dairyman. I hope the Deacon begins to see what connection this has with a large pile of rich manure.
I do not mean merely a heavy growth of grass, but grass containing a high percentage of nutriment. Our long winters and heavy snows are a great advantage to us in this respect. Our grass in the spring, after its long rest, ought to start up like asparagus, and, under the organizing influence of our clear skies, and powerful sun, ought to be exceedingly nutritious. Comparatively few farmers, however, live up to their privileges in this respect. Our climate is better than our farming, the sun richer than our neglected soil. England may be able to produce more grass per acre in a year than we can, but we ought to produce richer grass, and, consequently, more cheese to a cow. And I believe, in fact, that such is often the case. The English dairyman has the advantage of a longer season of growth. We have a shorter season but a brighter sun, and if we do not have richer grass it is due to the want of draining, clean culture, and manuring. The object of American dairymen should be, not only to obtain more grass per acre, but to increase its nutriment in a given bulk. If we could increase it one-half, making six tons equal to nine tons, we have shown that it is nearly three times as valuable. Whether this can be done, I have not now time to consider; but at any rate if your land produces as many weeds as do some fields on my farm, not to say the Deacon’s, and if the plant-food that these weeds absorb, could be organized by nutritious grasses, this alone would do a good deal towards accomplishing the object. Whether this can be done or not, we want cows that can eat and turn to good account as much food per annum as is contained in nine tons of ordinary meadow-hay; and we want this nutriment in a bulk not exceeding six tons of hay.If possible, we should get this amount of nutriment in grass or hay. But if we can not do this, we mustfeed enough concentrated foodto bring it up to the desired standard.
“But will it pay?” asked the Deacon; “I have not much faith in buying feed. A farmer ought to raise everything he feeds out.”
“As a rule, this may be true,” I replied, “but there are many exceptions. I am trying to show that it will often pay a dairyman well to buy feed rich in nitrogen and phosphates, so as to make rich manure, and give him a start. After he gets his land rich, there is little difficulty in keeping up its productiveness.
“Now, I have said—and the figures, if anything, are too low—that if a cow, eating six tons of hay, or its equivalent, a year, produces 400 lbs. of cheese, a cow capable of eating, digesting, and turning to good account nine tons of hay, or its equivalent, a year, would produce 1,090 lbs. of cheese, or its equivalent in other products.”
I would like to say much more on this subject, but I hope enough has been said to show that there is great advantage in feeding rich food, even so far as the production of milk or beef is concerned; and if this is the case, then there is no difficulty in making rich manure on a dairy farm.
And I am delighted to know that many farmers in the dairy districts are purchasing more and more bran and meal every year. Taking milk, and beef, and manure all into the account, I feel sure that it will be found highly profitable; but you must have good cows—cows that can turn their extra food to good account.
This is not the place to discuss the merits of the different breeds of cows. All I wish to show is, that to make better manure, we must use richer food; and to feed this to advantage, we must have animals that can turn a large amount of food, over and above the amount required to sustain the vital functions, into milk, flesh, etc.
“You do not think,” said the Deacon, “that a well-bred cow makes any richer manure than a common cow?”
Of course not; but to make rich manure, we must feed well; and we can not afford to feed well unless we have good animals.
We can not go into details on this subject. The truth is, there are several good methods of saving manure, and which is best depends entirely on circumstances. The real point is to save the urine, and keep the cow-stable clean and sweet. There are three prominent methods adopted:
1st. To throw all the liquid and solid excrements into a manure-cellar underneath the cow-stable. In this cellar, dry swamp-muck, dry earth, or other absorbent material, is mixed with the manure in sufficient quantity to keep down offensive odors. A little dry earth or muck is also used in the stable, scattering it twice a day in the gutters and under the hind legs of the cows. Where this is carried out, it has many and decided advantages.
2d. To wheel or throw out the solid parts of the manure, and to have a drain for carrying the liquid into a tank, where it can be pumped on to the heap of manure in the yard. Where many horses or sheep are kept, and only a few cows, this plan can often be used to advantage, as the heap of manure in the yard, consisting of horse-manure, sheep-manure, and a small portion of cow-dung, will be able to absorb all the urine of the cows.
3d. To use sufficient bedding to absorb all the urine in the stable. In my own case, as I have said before, we usually chaff all our straw and stalks. The orts are used for bedding, and we also use a little dry earth—or, to be more exact, I use it when I attend to the matter myself, but have always found more or less trouble in getting the work done properly, unless I give it personal attention. To use “dirt” to keep the stable clean, is not a popular plan in this neighborhood. Where there is an abundance of straw, and especially if cut into chaff, the easiest way to keep the stable clean, and the cows comfortable, is to use enough of this chaffed straw to absorb all the liquid. Clean out the stable twice a day, and wheel the manure directly to the heap, and spread it.
In regard to the application of manure on a dairy-farm, we have seen what Harris Lewis does with his. I also wrote to T. L. Harison, Esq., of St. Lawrence Co., N.Y.; and knowing that he is not only a very intelligent farmer and breeder, but also one of our best agricultural writers, I asked him if he had written anything on the subject of manures.
“St. Lawrence Co.,” said the Deacon, “produces capital grass, oats, and barley, but is, I should think, too far north for winter wheat; but what did Mr Harison say?”—Here is his letter:
“I never wrote anything about manure. Catch me at it! Nor do I know anything about the management of barn-yard manure worth telling. My own practice is dictated quite as much by convenience as by considerations of economy.”
“Good,” said the Deacon; “he writes like a sensible man.”
“My rotation,” he continues, “is such that the bulk of the manure made is applied toone crop; that is, to my hoed crops, corn, potatoes, and roots, in the second year.
“The manure from the stables is thrown or wheeled out under the sheds adjoining, and as fast as it becomes so large a quantity as to be in the way, or whenever there is an opportunity, it is hauled out to the field, where it is to be used, and put in large piles. It is turned once, if possible, in the spring, and then spread.
“The quantity applied, is, as near as may be, 25 loads per acre; but as we use a great deal of straw, we haul out 30 loads, and estimate that in the spring it will be about 25 loads.
“If we have any more (and occasionally we have 100 loads over), we pile it near the barn, and turn it once or twice during the summer, and use it as seems most profitable—sometimes to top-dress an old grass-field, that for some reason we prefer not to break for another year. Sometimes it goes on a piece of fall wheat, and sometimes is kept over for a barley field the following spring, and harrowed in just before sowing.
“I should spread the manure as it comes from the sheds, instead of piling it, but the great quantity of snow we usually have, has always seemed to be an insuperable obstacle. It is an advantage to pile it, and to give it one turning, but, on the other hand, the piles made in cold weather freeze through, and they take a provokingly long time to thaw out in the spring. I never found manurepiledout of doors to get too much water from rain.
“I have given up using gypsum, except a little in the stables, because the clover grows too strong without it, and so long as this is the case, I do not need gypsum. But I sometimes have a piece of oats or barley that stands still, and looks sick, and a dose of gypsum helps it very much.”
“That is a fact worth remembering,” said the Deacon.
“I use some superphosphate,” continues Mr. Harison, “and some ground bones on my turnips. We also use superphosphate on oats, barley, and wheat (about 200 lbs. per acre), and find it pays. Last year, our estimate was, on 10 acres of oats, comparing with a strip in the middle, left for the purpose, that the 200 lbs. of superphosphate increased the crop 15 bushels per acre, and gave a gain in quality. It was the “Manhattan,” which has about three per cent ammonia, and seven to eight per cent soluble phosphoric acid.