Talks on Manures
by Joseph Harris · English · Gutenberg #19448 · 1,083,096 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Talks on Manures
Author: Joseph Harris
Release date: October 3, 2006 [eBook #19448]
Most recently updated: October 29, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALKS ON MANURES ***
* * * * *
TALKS ON MANURES.
A Series of Familiar and Practical Talks
Between the Author and the Deacon, the Doctor,
and Other Neighbors, on the Whole Subject
of Manures and Fertilizers.
by
JOSEPH HARRIS, M.S.
Author of “Walks and Talks on the Farm,”
“Harris on the Pig,” etc.
NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION,
Including a Chapter Specially Written for It
by Sir John Bennet Lawes, of Rothamsted, England.
[Illustration: Publisher’s Logo]
New York:
Orange Judd Company,
1919
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by the
ORANGE JUDD COMPANY
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Farming as a Business.-- High Farming and Good Farming.--
Summer-fallowing and Plowing under Clover.-- We must raise
larger Crops per Acre.-- Destruction of Weeds.-- Farming is
Slow Work.-- It requires Personal Attention. 9
CHAPTER II.
What is Manure?-- The definitions given by the Deacon and the
Doctor. 19
CHAPTER III.
Something about Plant-food.-- All soils on which plants grow
contain it.-- The Season.-- Water, Shade, Light, and Mulch,
not Manures.-- Several Definitions of Manure. 21
CHAPTER IV.
Natural Manure.-- Accumulated Plant-food in the Soil.-- Exhaustion
of the Soil.-- Why our Crops are so Poor.-- How to get Larger
Crops.-- We must Drain, Cultivate thoroughly, and Make Richer
Manure. 23
CHAPTER V.
Swamp-muck and Peat as Manure.-- Draining Swamp-land.--
Composition of Peat and Muck. 29
CHAPTER VI.
What is Potential Ammonia. 31
CHAPTER VII.
Tillage is Manure.-- The Doctor’s Lecture on Manure. 32
CHAPTER VIII.
Summer-fallowing.-- Mr. Lawes’ crop every other year.-- Wheat
after Barley.-- For Larger Crops raise less frequently, and
Manure Higher; also keep better Stock, and Feed Higher. 34
CHAPTER IX.
How to Restore a Worn-out Farm.-- The Author’s Farm.-- Tillage
renders the Plant-food stored in the soil available.--
Cultivated Lands contain less Plant-food, but are more
productive.-- Grass alone will not make rich land. 37
CHAPTER X.
How to Make Manure.-- We must get it out of the Land. 41
CHAPTER XI.
The Value of the Manure depends upon the Food--not upon the
Animal. 43
CHAPTER XII.
Foods which Make Rich Manure.-- Table giving the composition of
31 kinds of Food and the value of the Manure they yield.--
Cotton-seed Cake.-- English and German Clover.-- Nitrogenous
matter in Rich and Poor Foods.-- Manure from Corn compared
with that from Straw. 45
CHAPTER XIII.
Horse-manure and Farm-yard Manure.-- Why the one is richer than
the other.-- Amount of Manure from a Horse.-- Composition of
Farm-yard Manure.-- We draw and spread a ton to get 33 lbs. of
Nitrogen, Phosphoric Acid, and Potash. 50
CHAPTER XIV.
Fermenting Manure.-- Composition of Manure when Fresh and in
its stages of Fermentation.-- Loss in Fermentation and from
Leaching.-- Tables showing the composition of Manure at
different stages.-- Fermenting makes Manure more Soluble. 52
CHAPTER XV.
Keeping Manure under Cover.-- Dr. Vœlcker’s Experiments.-- Manure
Fermented Outside and Under Cover.-- Loss from keeping Manure
spread in the Barn-yard.-- Keeping well-rotted Manure in a
Heap.-- Conclusions from Dr. Vœlcker’s Experiments. 59
CHAPTER XVI.
An English Plan of Keeping Manure.-- Box feeding of Cattle.--
Spreading Manure at once.-- Piling in Heaps in the Field.--
Old Sods and Ashes from Charred Sods. 69
CHAPTER XVII.
Soluble Phosphates in Farm-yard Manure.-- Fermented, the Manure
has the most.-- Over 40 per cent. of the Phosphoric Acid is
Soluble. 72
CHAPTER XVIII.
How the Deacon makes Manure.-- A good plan for making poor Manure. 74
CHAPTER XIX.
How John Johnston Manages His Manure. Summer-fallows for Wheat.--
Does not plow under Clover.-- Value of Manure from different
foods.-- Piling Manure.-- Applies Manure to Grass-land in Fall,
and Plows under in Spring for Corn.-- His success due to the
Effect of Manure on Grass.-- It brought in Red Clover. 76
CHAPTER XX.
The Author’s Plan of Managing Manure.-- Piles as fast as it is
Made.-- What it is Made of.-- Horse and Cow Manure Together.--
Horse Manure for Bedding Pigs.-- To Prevent Freezing.-- Liquid
Manure from Pigs.-- Bedding Sheep.-- Piling in the Field.--
Where the Piles should be Made.-- Manure in a Basin.-- Reasons
for Piling.-- What we Gain by Fermenting Manure. 83
CHAPTER XXI.
Management Continued.-- Why We Ferment Manure.-- Dr. Vœlcker’s
Experiments showing the Loss when Manure is spread in Yards.--
Fermenting adds Nothing to Manure, but makes it more
available.-- Mr. Lawes’ Experiments on Wheat and Barley.-- Dr.
Vœlcker’s Results.-- Ellwander & Barry’s Experience.-- Loss of
Ammonia by Fermenting.-- Waste from Leaching.-- How to Save the
Liquid Manure from Cows. 94
CHAPTER XXII.
Manure on Dairy Farms.-- Wheat removes much more Nitrogen than
Cheese.-- Manures for Dairy Farms.-- Letter from Hon. Harris
Lewis.-- How to make more and better Manure on Dairy Farms.--
How to save and apply it.-- Letter from T. L. Harison, Esq. 101
CHAPTER XXIII.
Management of Manures on Grain Farms.-- Letter from Hon. Geo.
Geddes.-- Grain on Dairy Farms.-- Sheep on Grain Farms.-- Visit
to John Johnston.-- Mr. Lawes’ Wheat-field.-- Mr. Geddes and
Clover.-- Gypsum and Clover as Manures. 111
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Cheapest Manure a Farmer can use.-- Clover vs. Tillage.-- As
Plant-Food.-- Constituents of a Crop of Clover, as compared with
one of Wheat.-- Making a Farm Rich by Growing Clover. 127
CHAPTER XXV.
Dr. Vœlcker’s Experiments on Clover.-- Lawes and Gilbert’s on
Wheat.-- Clover Roots per Acre.-- Manures for Wheat.-- Liebig’s
Manure Theory.-- Peruvian Guano on Wheat.-- Manures and the
Quality of Wheat.-- Ammonia.-- Over 50 Bushels of Wheat to the
Acre. 135
CHAPTER XXVI.
Experiments on Clover Soils from Burcott Lodge Farm, Leighton
Buzzard.-- Soil from Part of 11-acre Field twice Mown for Hay.--
Soil from do. once Mown for Hay and left for Seed.-- Amount of
Roots left in the Soil by different Crops.-- Manures for Wheat. 149
CHAPTER XXVII.
Lawes and Gilbert’s Experiments on Wheat.-- Most Valuable and
Instructive Tables now first made accessible to the American
Farmer.-- The growth of Wheat Year after Year on the same Land,
unmanured, with Farm-yard Manure, and with various Organic and
Inorganic Fertilizers. 170
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Lime as a Manure.-- Prof. Way’s Experiments.-- The uses of Lime in
the Soil.-- Lime in this Country.-- Composts with Lime. 215
CHAPTER XXIX.
Manures for Barley.-- Composition of Barley, grain and straw.--
Valuable Tables giving the Results of Lawes and Gilbert’s
Experiments on the growth of Barley, Year after Year, on the
same Land, without Manure, and with different kinds of Manure.--
Manure and Rotation of Crops. 227
CHAPTER XXX.
Manures for Oats.-- Experiments at Rothamsted.-- Experiments of
Mr. Bath of Virginia.-- At Moreton Farm. 252
CHAPTER XXXI.
Manures for Potatoes.-- Peruvian Guano for Potatoes.-- Manure from
different Foods.-- Experiments at Moreton Farm.-- Mr. Hunter’s
Experiments. 255
CHAPTER XXXII.
What Crops should Manure be Applied to?-- How, and When?-- John
J. Thomas’ manner of Applying Manure.-- Top Dressing.-- Doct.
Vœlcker’s Experiments. 265
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Manures on Permanent Meadows and Pastures.-- Experiments at
Rothamsted. 271
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Manures for Special Crops.-- Hops.-- Indian Corn.-- Turnips.--
Mangel-Wurzel or Sugar-Beets.-- Cabbages, Parsnips, Lettuce,
Onions, etc. 274
CHAPTER XXXV.
Manures for Gardens and Orchards.-- Market Gardens.-- Seed-growing
Farms.-- Private Gardens.-- Hot-beds.-- Manure for Nurserymen.--
Fruit Growers.-- Hen-Manure. 294
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Different Kinds of Manures.-- Cow Manure.-- Sheep Manure.-- Buying
Manure.-- Liquid Manure.-- Nightsoil and Sewage.-- Peruvian
Guano.-- Salts of Ammonia and Nitrate of Soda. 302
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Bone-Dust and Superphosphate of Lime.-- Bone furnishes Nitrogen
as well as Phosphate of Lime.-- Increasing the Availability of
Bone with Sulphuric Acid. 314
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Special Manures.-- Liebig’s Views.-- Special Manure for Wheat and
Turnips.-- Rothamsted Experiments. 320
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Value of Fertilizers.-- Cost per pound of the Essential
Constituents of Fertilizers.-- Value of Guanos.-- Potash as a
Manure. 324
CHAPTER XL.
Restoring Fertility to the Soil, a Chapter by Sir John Bennet
Lawes.-- The Treatment of a Poor Farm, to Restore it most
Profitably.-- Meat-making the Back-bone of the System.-- The
Use of Sheep to Manure the Soil.-- The Feeding of Cotton-seed
Cake.-- Artificial Manures not Profitable on Poor Land.--
The Loss of Nitrogen.-- The Formation of Nitric Acid. 342
APPENDIX.
Letter from Edward Jessop.-- From Dr. E. L. Sturtevant.-- From
M. C. Weld.-- From Peter Henderson.-- From J. B. M. anderson.--
Manure Statistics of Long Island.-- Letter from J. H. Rushmore.--
Letter from John E. Backus.-- Manure in Philadelphia.-- Various
other Letters. 352
INTRODUCTION TO NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION.
Sir John Bennet Lawes kindly consented to write a Chapter for the new
edition of this work. The Deacon, the Doctor, the Squire, Charlie and
myself all felt flattered and somewhat bashful at finding ourselves in
such distinguished company. I need not say that this new Chapter from
the pen of the most eminent English agricultural investigator is worthy
of a very careful study. I have read it again and again, and each time
with great and renewed interest. I could wish there was more of it. But
to the intelligent and well-informed reader this Chapter will be valued
not merely for what it contains, but for what it omits. A man who knew
less would write more. Sir John goes straight to the mark, and we have
here his mature views on one of the most important questions in
agricultural science and practice.
Sir John describes a tract of poor land, and tells us that the cheapest
method of improving and enriching it is, to keep a large breeding flock
of sheep, and feed them American cotton-seed cake. We are pleased to
find that this is in accordance with the general teaching of our
“Talks,” as given in this book several years ago.
When this work was first published, some of my friends expressed
surprise that I did not recommend the more extended use of artificial
manures. One thing is certain, since that time the use of superphosphate
has been greatly on the increase. And it seems clear that its use must
be profitable. Where I live, in Western New York, it is sown quite
generally on winter wheat, and also on barley and oats in the spring.
On corn and potatoes, its use is not so common. Whether this is because
its application to these crops is not so easy, or because it does not
produce so marked an increase in the yield per acre, I am unable to say.
Our winter wheat is sown here the first, second, or (rarely) the third
week in September. We sow from one and a half to two and a quarter
bushels per acre. It is almost invariably sown with a drill. The drill
has a fertilizer attachment that distributes the superphosphate at the
same time the wheat is sown. The superphosphate is not mixed with the
wheat, but it drops into the same tubes with the wheat, and is sown with
it in the same drill mark. In this way, the superphosphate is deposited
where the roots of the young plants can immediately find it. For barley
and oats the same method is adopted.
It will be seen that the cost of sowing superphosphate on these crops
is merely nominal. But for corn and potatoes, when planted in hills,
the superphosphate must be dropped in the hill by hand, and, as we are
almost always hurried at that season of the year, we are impatient at
anything which will delay planting even for a day. The boys want to go
fishing!
This is, undoubtedly, one reason why superphosphate is not used so
generally with us for corn as for wheat, barley, and oats. Another
reason may be, that one hundred pounds of corn will not sell for
anything like as much as one hundred pounds of wheat, barley, and oats.
We are now buying a very good superphosphate, made from Carolina rock
phosphate, for about one and a half cents per pound. We usually drill in
about two hundred pounds per acre at a cost of three dollars. Now, if
this gives us an increase of five bushels of wheat per acre, worth six
dollars, we think it pays. It often does far better than this. Last year
the wheat crop of Western New York was the best in a third of a century,
which is as far back as I have had anything to do with farming here.
From all I can learn, it is doubtful if the wheat crop of Western New
York has ever averaged a larger yield per acre since the land was first
cultivated after the removal of the original forest. Something of this
is due to better methods of cultivation and tillage, and something,
doubtless, to the general use of superphosphate, but much more to the
favorable season.
The present year our wheat crop turned out exceedingly poor. Hundreds of
acres of wheat were plowed up, and the land resown, and hundreds more
would have been plowed up had it not been for the fact that the land
was seeded with timothy grass at the time of sowing the wheat, and with
clover in the spring. We do not like to lose our grass and clover.
Dry weather in the autumn was the real cause of the poor yield of wheat
this year. True, we had a very trying winter, and a still more trying
spring, followed by dry, cold weather. The season was very backward. We
were not able to sow anything in the fields before the first of May, and
our wheat ought to have been ready to harvest in July. On the first of
May, many of our wheat-fields, especially on clay land, looked as bare
as a naked fallow.
There was here and there, a good field of wheat. As a rule, it was on
naturally moist land, or after a good summer-fallow, sown early. I know
of but one exception. A neighboring nursery firm had a very promising
field of wheat, which was sown late. But their land is rich and
unusually well worked. It is, in fact, in the very highest condition,
and, though sown late, the young plants were enabled to make a good
strong growth in the autumn.
In such a dry season, the great point is, to get the seed to germinate,
and to furnish sufficient moisture and food to enable the young plants
to make a strong, vigorous growth of roots in the autumn. I do not say
that two hundred pounds of superphosphate per acre, drilled in with the
seed, will always accomplish this object. But it is undoubtedly a great
help. It does not furnish the nitrogen which the wheat requires, but
if it will stimulate the production of roots in the early autumn, the
plants will be much more likely to find a sufficient supply of nitrogen
in the soil than plants with fewer and smaller roots.
In a season like the past, therefore, an application of two hundred
pounds of superphosphate per acre, costing three dollars, instead of
giving an increase of five or six bushels per acre, may give us an
increase of fifteen or twenty bushels per acre. That is to say, owing
to the dry weather in the autumn, followed by severe weather in the
winter, the weak plants on the unmanured land may either be killed out
altogether, or injured to such an extent that the crop is hardly worth
harvesting, while the wheat where the phosphate was sown may give us
almost an average crop.
Sir John B. Lawes has somewhere compared the owner of land to the owner
of a coal mine. The owner of the coal digs it and gets it to market in
the best way he can. The farmer’s coal mine consists of plant food, and
the object of the farmer is to get this food into such plants, or such
parts of plants, as his customers require. It is hardly worth while for
the owner of the coal mine to trouble his head about the exhaustion of
the supply of coal. His true plan is to dig it as economically as he
can, and get it into market. There is a good deal of coal in the world,
and there is a good deal of plant food in the earth. As long as the
plant food lies dormant in the soil, it is of no value to man. The
object of the farmer is to convert it into products which man and
animals require.
Mining for coal is a very simple matter, but how best to get the
greatest quantity of plant food out of the soil, with the least waste
and the greatest profit, is a much more complex and difficult task.
Plant food consists of a dozen or more different substances. We have
talked about them in the pages of this book, and all I wish to say here
is that some of them are much more abundant, and more readily obtained,
than others. The three substances most difficult to get at are: nitric
acid, phosphoric acid and potash. All these substances are in the soil,
but some soils contain much more than others, and their relative
proportion varies considerably. The substance which is of the greatest
importance, is nitric acid. As a rule, the fertility of a soil is in
proportion to the amount of nitric acid which becomes available for the
use of plants during the growing season. Many of our soils contain large
quantities of nitrogen, united with carbon, but the plants do not take
it up in this form. It has to be converted into nitric acid. Nitric acid
consists of seven pounds of nitrogen and twenty pounds of oxygen. It is
produced by the combustion of nitrogen. Since these “Talks” were
published, several important facts have been discovered in regard to how
plants take up nitrogen, and especially in regard to how organic
nitrogen is converted into nitric acid. It is brought about through the
action of a minute fungoid plant. There are several things necessary for
the growth of this plant. We must have some nitrogenous substance,
a moderate degree of heat, say from seventy to one hundred and twenty
degrees, a moderate amount of moisture, and plenty of oxygen. Shade is
also favorable. If too hot or too cold, or too wet or too dry, the
growth of the plant is checked, and the formation of nitric acid
suspended. The presence of lime, or of some alkali, is also necessary
for the growth of this fungus and the production of nitric acid. The
nitric acid unites with the lime, and forms nitrate of lime, or with
soda to form nitrate of soda, or with potash to form nitrate of potash,
or salt-petre. A water-logged soil, by excluding the oxygen, destroys
this plant, hence one of the advantages of underdraining. I have said
that shade is favorable to the growth of this fungus, and this fact
explains and confirms the common idea that shade is manure.
The great object of agriculture is to convert the nitrogen of our soils,
or of green crops plowed under, or of manure, into nitric acid, and then
to convert this nitric acid into profitable products with as little loss
as possible. Nitrogen, or rather nitric acid, is the most costly
ingredient in plant food, and unfortunately it is very easily washed out
of the soil and lost. Perhaps it is absolutely impossible to entirely
prevent all loss from leaching; but it is certainly well worth our while
to understand the subject, and to know exactly what we are doing. In a
new country, where land is cheap, it may be more profitable to raise as
large crops as possible without any regard to the loss of nitric acid.
But this condition of things does not last long, and it very soon
becomes desirable to adopt less wasteful processes.
In Lawes and Gilbert’s experiments, there is a great loss of nitric
acid from drainage. In no case has as much nitrogen been obtained in the
increased crop as was applied in the manure. There is always a loss and
probably always will be. But we should do all we can to make this loss
as small as possible, consistent with the production of profitable
crops.
There are many ways of lessening this loss of nitric acid. Our farmers
sow superphosphate with their wheat in the autumn, and this stimulates,
we think, the growth of roots, which ramify in all directions through
the soil. This increased growth of root brings the plant in contact with
a larger feeding surface, and enables it to take up more nitric acid
from its solution in the soil. Such is also the case during the winter
and early spring, when a good deal of water permeates through the
soil. The application of superphosphate, unquestionably in many cases,
prevents much loss of nitric acid. It does this by giving us a much
greater growth of wheat.
I was at Rothamsted in 1879, and witnessed the injurious effect of an
excessive rainfall, in washing out of the soil nitrate of soda and salts
of ammonia, which were sown with the wheat in the autumn. It was an
exceedingly wet season, and the loss of nitrates on all the different
plots was very great. But where the nitrates or salts of ammonia were
sown in the spring, while the crops were growing, the loss was not
nearly so great as when sown in the autumn.
The sight of that wheat field impressed me, as nothing else could, with
the importance of guarding against the loss of available nitrogen from
leaching, and it has changed my practice in two or three important
respects. I realize, as never before, the importance of applying manure
to crops, rather than to the land. I mean by this, that the object of
applying manure is, not simply to make land rich, but to make crops
grow. Manure is a costly and valuable article, and we want to convert it
into plants, with as little delay as possible, which will, directly or
indirectly, bring in some money.
Our climate is very different from that of England. As a rule, we seldom
have enough rain, from the time corn is planted until it is harvested,
to more than saturate the ground on our upland soils. This year is an
exception. On Sunday night, May 20, 1883, we had a northeast storm which
continued three days. During these three days, from three to five inches
of rain fell, and for the first time in many years, at this season, my
underdrains discharged water to their full capacity. Had nitrate of
soda been sown on bare land previous to this rain, much of it would,
doubtless, have been lost by leaching. This, however, is an exceptional
case. My underdrains usually do not commence to discharge water before
the first of December, or continue later than the first of May. To guard
against loss of nitrogen by leaching, therefore, we should aim to keep
rich land occupied by some crop, during the winter and early spring, and
the earlier the crop is sown in the autumn or late summer, the better,
so that the roots will the more completely fill the ground and take up
all the available nitrogen within their reach. I have said that this
idea had modified my own practice. I grow a considerable quantity of
garden vegetables, principally for seed. It is necessary to make the
land very rich. The plan I have adopted to guard against the loss of
nitrogen is this: As soon as the land is cleared of any crop, after it
is too late to sow turnips, I sow it with rye at the rate of one and a
half to two bushels per acre. On this rich land, especially on the moist
low land, the rye makes a great growth during our warm autumn weather.
The rye checks the growth of weeds, and furnishes a considerable amount
of succulent food for sheep, during the autumn or in the spring. If not
needed for food, it can be turned under in the spring for manure. It
unquestionably prevents the loss of considerable nitric acid from
leaching during the winter and early spring.
Buckwheat, or millet, is sometimes sown on such land for plowing under
as manure, but as these crops are killed out by the winter, they cannot
prevent the loss of nitric acid during the winter and spring months. It
is only on unusually rich land that such precautions are particularly
necessary. It has been thought that these experiments of Lawes and
Gilbert afford a strong argument against the use of summer-fallows. I do
not think so. A summer-fallow, in this country, is usually a piece of
land which has been seeded down one, two, and sometimes three years,
with red clover. The land is plowed in May or June, and occasionally in
July, and is afterwards sown to winter wheat in September. The treatment
of the summer-fallow varies in different localities and on different
farms.
Sometimes the land is only plowed once. The clover, or sod, is plowed
under deep and well, and the after-treatment consists in keeping the
surface soil free from weeds, by the frequent use of the harrow, roller,
cultivator or gang-plow. In other cases, especially on heavy clay land,
the first plowing is done early in the spring, and when the sod is
sufficiently rotted, the land is cross-plowed, and afterwards made fine
and mellow by the use of the roller, harrow, and cultivator. Just before
sowing the wheat, many good, old-fashioned farmers, plow the land again.
But in this section, a summer-fallow, plowed two or three times during
the summer, is becoming more and more rare every year.
Those farmers who summer-fallow at all, as a rule, plow their land but
once, and content themselves with mere surface cultivation afterwards.
It is undoubtedly true, also, that summer fallows of all kinds are by
no means as common as formerly. This fact may be considered an argument
against the use of summer-fallowing; but it is not conclusive in my
mind. Patient waiting is not a characteristic of the age. We are
inclined to take risks. We prefer to sow our land to oats, or barley,
and run the chance of getting a good wheat crop after it, rather than to
spend several months in cleaning and mellowing the land, simply to grow
one crop of wheat.
It has always seemed to me entirely unnecessary to urge farmers not to
summer-fallow. We all naturally prefer to see the land occupied by a
good paying crop, rather than to spend time, money, and labor, in
preparing it to produce a crop twelve or fifteen months afterwards. Yet
some of the agricultural editors and many of the agricultural writers,
seem to take delight in deriding the old-fashioned summer-fallow. The
fact that Lawes and Gilbert in England find that, when land contains
considerable nitric acid, the water which percolates through the soil
to the underdrains beneath, contains more nitrate of lime when the land
is not occupied by a crop, than when the roots of growing plants fill
the soil, is deemed positive proof that summer-fallowing is a wasteful
practice.
If we summer-fallowed for a spring crop, as I have sometimes done, it
is quite probable that there would be a loss of nitrogen. But, as I have
said before, it is very seldom that any water passes through the soil
from the time we commence the summer-fallow until the wheat is sown in
the autumn, or for many weeks afterwards. The nitrogen, which is
converted into nitric acid by the agency of a good summer-fallow, is
no more liable to be washed out of the soil after the field is sown to
wheat in the autumn, than if we applied the nitrogen in the form of some
readily available manure.
I still believe in summer fallows. If I had my life to live over again,
I would certainly summer-fallow more than I have done. I have been an
agricultural writer for one-third of a century, and have persistently
advocated the more extended use of the summer-fallow. I have nothing
to take back, unless it is what I have said in reference to
“fall-fallowing.” Possibly this practice may result in loss, though
I do not think so.
A good summer-fallow, on rather heavy clay land, if the conditions are
otherwise favorable, is pretty sure to give us a good crop of wheat, and
a good crop of clover and grass afterwards. Of course, a farmer who has
nice, clean sandy soil, will not think of summer-fallowing it. Such
soils are easily worked, and it is not a difficult matter to keep them
clean without summer-fallowing. Such soils, however, seldom contain a
large store of unavailable plant food, and instead of summer-fallowing,
we had better manure. On such soils artificial manures are often very
profitable, though barn-yard manure, or the droppings of animals feeding
on the land, should be the prime basis of all attempts to maintain, or
increase, the productiveness of such soils.
Since this book was first published, I do not know of any new facts
in regard to the important question of, how best to manage and apply
our barn-yard manure, so as to make it more immediately active and
available. It is unquestionably true, that the same amount of nitrogen
in barn-yard manure, will not produce so great an effect as its
theoretical value would indicate. There can be no doubt, however, that
the better we feed our animals, and the more carefully we save the
liquids, the more valuable and active will be the manure.
The conversion of the inert nitrogen of manures and soils, into nitric
acid, as already stated, is now known to be produced by a minute fungus.
I hope it will be found that we can introduce this _bacterium_ into our
manure piles, in such a way as to greatly aid the conversion of inert
nitrogen into nitrates.
Experiments have been made, and are still continued, at Woburn, under
the auspices of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, to ascertain,
among other things, whether manure from sheep receiving an allowance of
cotton-seed cake is any richer than that from sheep, otherwise fed
alike, but having, instead of cotton-seed cake, the same amount of corn
meal. We know that such manure contains more nitrogen, and other plant
food, than that from the corn meal. But the experiments so far, though
they have been continued for several years, do not show any striking
superiority of the manure from cotton-seed cake over that from corn
meal. I saw the wheat on these differently manured plots in 1879. Dr.
Vœlcker and Dr. Gilbert, told me that, one of two plots was dressed with
the cotton-seed manure, and the other with the corn meal manure, and
they wanted me to say which was the most promising crop. I believe the
one I said was the better, was the cotton-seed plot. But the difference
was very slight. The truth is that such experiments must be continued
for many years before they will prove anything. As I said before, we
know that the manure from the cotton-seed cake is richer in nitrogen
than that from the corn meal; but we also know that this nitrogen will
not produce so great an effect, as a much smaller amount of nitrogen in
salts of ammonia, or nitrate of soda.
In going over these experiments, I was struck with the healthy and
vigorous appearance of one of the plots of wheat, and asked how it was
manured. Dr. Vœlcker called out, “clover, Mr. Harris, clover.” In
England, as in America, it requires very little observation and
experience to convince any one of the value of clover. After what I
have said, and what the Deacon, the Doctor, Charley and the Squire have
said, in the pages of this book, I hope no one will think that I do not
appreciate the great value of red clover as a means of enriching our
land. Dr. Vœlcker evidently thought I was skeptical on this point. I am
not. I have great faith in the benefits to be derived from the growth
of clover. But I do not think it originates fertility; it does not get
nitrogen from the atmosphere. Or at any rate, we have no evidence of it.
The facts are all the other way. We have discussed this question at
considerable length in the pages of this book, and it is not necessary
to say more on the subject. I would, however, particularly urge farmers,
especially those who are using phosphates freely, to grow as much clover
as possible, and feed it out on the farm, or plow it under for manure.
The question is frequently asked, whether the use of phosphates will
ultimately impoverish our farms. It may, or it may not. It depends on
our general management. Theoretically, the use of a manure furnishing
only one element of plant food, if it increases the growth of crops
which are sold from the farm, must have a tendency to impoverish the
land of the other elements of plant food. In other words, the use of
superphosphate furnishing only, or principally, phosphoric acid, lime
and sulphuric acid, must have a tendency to impoverish the soil of
nitrogen and potash. Practically, however, it need do nothing of the
kind. If the land is well cultivated, and if our low, rich, alluvial
portions of the farm are drained, and if the hay, grass, clover, straw
and fodder crops are retained, the more phosphates we use, the richer
and more productive will the farm become. And I think it is a fact, that
the farmers who use the most phosphates, are the very men who take the
greatest pains to drain their land, cultivate it thoroughly, and make
the most manure. It follows, therefore, that the use of phosphates is a
national benefit.
Some of our railroad managers take this view of the subject. They
carry superphosphate at a low rate, knowing that its use will increase
the freight the other way. In other words, they bring a ton of
superphosphate from the seaboard, knowing that its use will give them
many tons of freight of produce, from the interior to the seaboard. It
is not an uncommon thing for two hundred pounds of superphosphate, to
give an increase of five tons of turnips per acre. Or, so to speak, the
railroad that brings one ton of superphosphate from the seaboard, might,
as the result of its use, have fifty tons of freight to carry back
again. This is perhaps an exceptionably favorable instance, but it
illustrates the principle. Years ago, before the abolition of tolls on
the English turnpike roads, carriages loaded with lime, and all other
substances intended for manure, were allowed to go free. And our
railroads will find it to their interest to transport manures of all
kinds, at a merely nominal rate.
Many people will be surprised at the recommendation of Sir John B.
Lawes, not to waste time and money in cleaning poor land, before seeding
it down to grass. He thinks that if the land is made rich, the superior
grasses overgrow the bad grasses and weeds. I have no doubt he is right
in this, though the principle may be pushed to an extreme. Our climate,
in this country, is so favorable for killing weeds, that the plow and
the cultivator will probably be a more economical means of making our
land clean, than the liberal use of expensive manures. It depends,
doubtless, on the land and on circumstances. It is well to know that
manure on grass land, will so increase the growth of the good grasses,
as to smother the weeds. Near my house was a piece of land that I wanted
to make into a lawn. I sowed it with grass seed, but the weeds smothered
it out. I plowed it, and hoed it, and re-seeded it, but still the weeds
grew. Mallows came up by the thousand, with other weeds too numerous to
mention. It was an eye-sore. We mowed the weeds, but almost despaired of
ever making a decent bit of grass land out of it. It so happened that,
one year, we placed the chicken coops on this miserable weedy spot. The
hens and chickens were kept there for several weeks. The feed and the
droppings made it look more unsightly than ever, but the next spring,
as if by magic, the weeds were gone and the land was covered with dark
green luxuriant grass.
In regard to the use of potash as a manure, we have still much to learn.
It would seem that our grain crops will use soda, if they cannot get
potash. They much prefer the potash, and will grow much more luxuriantly
where, in the soil or manure, in addition to the other elements of plant
food, potash is abundant. But the increased growth caused by the potash,
is principally, if not entirely, straw, or leaves and stem. Nature makes
a great effort to propagate the species. A plant of wheat or barley,
will produce seed if this is possible, even at the expense of the other
parts of the plant.
For grain crops, grown for seed, therefore, it would seem to be entirely
unprofitable to use potash as a manure. If the soil contains the other
elements of plant food, the addition of potash may give us a much more
luxuriant growth of leaves and stem, but no more grain or seed. For hay,
or grass or fodder crops, the case is very different, and potash may
often be used on these crops to great advantage.
I am inclined to think that considerable nitrate of soda will yet be
used in this country for manure. I do not suppose it will pay as a rule,
on wheat, corn and other standard grain crops. But the gardener, seed
grower, and nurseryman, will find out how to use it with great profit.
Our nurserymen say that they cannot use artificial manures with any
advantage. It is undoubtedly true that a dressing of superphosphate,
sown on a block of nursery trees, will do little good. It never reaches
the roots of the plants. Superphosphate can not be washed down deep into
the soil. Nitrate of soda is readily carried down, as deep as the water
sinks. For trees, therefore, it would seem desirable to apply the
superphosphate before they are planted, and plow it under. And the same
is true of potash; but nitrate of soda would be better applied as a
top-dressing every year, early in the spring.
The most discouraging fact, in Lawes’ and Gilbert’s experiments, is the
great loss of nitrogen. It would seem that, on an average, during the
last forty years, about one-half the nitrogen is washed out of the soil,
or otherwise lost. I can not but hope and believe that, at any rate in
this country, there is no such loss in practical agriculture. In Lawes’
and Gilbert’s experiments on wheat, this grain is grown year after year,
on the same land. Forty annual crops have been removed. No clover is
sown with the wheat, and great pains are taken to keep the land clean.
The crop is hoed while growing, and the weeds are pulled out by hand.
The best wheat season during the forty years, was the year 1863. The
poorest, that of 1879; and it so happened, that after an absence of
thirty years, I was at Rothamsted during this poor year of 1879. The
first thing that struck me, in looking at the experimental wheat, was
the ragged appearance of the crop. My own wheat crop was being cut the
day I left home, July 15. Several men and boys were pulling weeds out
of the experimental wheat, two weeks later. Had the weeds been suffered
to grow, Sir John Bennet Lawes tells us, there would be less loss of
nitrogen. The loss of nitrogen in 1863, was about twenty-four pounds
per acre, and in 1879 fifty pounds per acre--the amount of available
nitrogen, applied in each year, being eighty-seven pounds per acre. As I
said before, the wheat in 1879 had to me a ragged look. It was thin on
the ground. There were not plants enough to take up and evaporate the
large amount of water which fell during the wet season. Such a condition
of things rarely occurs in this country. We sow timothy with our winter
wheat, in the autumn, and red clover in the spring. After the wheat is
harvested, we frequently have a heavy growth of clover in the autumn. In
such circumstances I believe there would be comparatively little loss of
nitrogen.
In the summer-fallow experiments, which have now been continued for
twenty-seven years, there has been a great loss of nitrogen. The same
remarks apply to this case. No one ever advocates summer-fallowing land
every other year, and sowing nothing but wheat. When we summer-fallow a
piece of land for wheat, we seed it down with grass and clover. There
is, as a rule, very little loss of nitrogen by drainage while the wheat
is growing on the ground, but after the wheat is cut, the grass and
clover are pretty sure to take up all the available nitrogen within
the range of their roots. This summer-fallow experiment, instead of
affording an argument against the use of summer-fallowing, is an
argument in its favor. The summer-fallow, by exposing the soil to the
decomposing influences of the atmosphere, converts more or less of the
inert nitrogenous organic matter into ammonia and nitric acid. This is
precisely what a farmer wants. It is just what the wheat crop needs. But
we must be very careful, when we render the nitrogen soluble, to have
some plant ready to take it up, and not let it be washed out of the soil
during the winter and early spring.
We have much poor land in the United States, and an immense area of
good land. The poor land will be used to grow timber, or be improved by
converting more or less of it, gradually, into pasture, and stocking it
with sheep and cattle. The main point is, to feed the sheep or cattle
with some rich nitrogenous food, such as cotton-seed cake, malt-sprouts,
bran, shorts, mill-feed, refuse beans, or bean-meal made from beans
injured by the weevil, or bug. In short, the owner of such land must buy
such food as will furnish the most nutriment and make the richest manure
at the least cost--taking both of these objects into consideration.
He will also buy more or less artificial manures, to be used for the
production of fodder crops, such as corn, millet, Hungarian grass, etc.
and, as soon as a portion of the land can be made rich enough, he will
grow more or less mangel wurzels, sugar beets, turnips, and other root
crops. Superphosphate will be found admirably adapted for this purpose,
and two, three, or four hundred pounds of cheap potash salts, per acre,
can frequently be used on fodder crops, in connection with two or three
hundred pounds of superphosphate, with considerable profit. The whole
subject is well worthy of careful study. Never in the history of the
world has there been a grander opportunity for the application of
science to the improvement of agriculture than now.
On the richer lands, the aim of the farmer will be to convert the plant
food lying dormant in the soil into profitable crops. The main point is
_good tillage_. In many cases weeds now run away with half our crops and
all our profits. The weeds which spring up after the grain crops are
harvested, are not an unmixed evil. They retain the nitrogen and other
plant food, and when turned under make manure for the succeeding crops.
But weeds among the growing crop are evil, and only an evil. Thorough
plowing is the remedy, accompanied by drainage where needed.
We have an immense number of farms on which there are both good and poor
land. In such cases we must adopt a combined system. We must grow large
crops on the rich land and use them, at least in part, to make manure
for the poorer portions of the farm. Drainage and good tillage will
convert much of our low, alluvial lands into a perfect mine of wealth.
And much of our high, rolling land consists of strong loam, abounding in
plant food. Such land requires little more than thorough tillage, with
perhaps two hundred pounds of superphosphate per acre, to enable it to
produce good grain crops.
After all is said and done, farming is a business that requires not
merely science, but industry, economy, and common sense. The real basis
of success is faith, accompanied with good works. I cannot illustrate
this better than by alluding to one of my neighbors, a strong, healthy,
intelligent, observing and enterprising German, who commenced life as a
farm laborer, and is to-day worth at least one hundred thousand dollars,
that he has made, not by the advance of suburban property, but by
farming, pure and simple. He first rented a farm, and then bought it,
and in a few years he bought another farm adjoining the first one, and
would to-day buy another if he found one that suited him. He has faith
in farming. Some people think he “runs his land,” and, in fact, such is
the case. He keeps good teams, and good plows, and good harrows, and
good rollers, and good cultivators, and good grade Shorthorn cows. He
acts as though he believed, as Sir John B. Lawes says, that “the soil is
a mine,” out of which he digs money. He runs his land for all it is
worth. He raises wheat, barley, oats, corn, potatoes, and hay, and when
he can get a good price for his timothy hay, he draws it to market and
sells it. Thorough tillage is the basis of his success. He is now using
phosphates for wheat, and will probably increase his herd of cows and
make more manure. He has great faith in manure, but acts as though he
had still greater faith in good plowing, early sowing, and thorough
cultivation.
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.
The Printers have got our “Talks on Manures” in type; and the publishers
want a Preface.
The Deacon is busy hoeing his corn; the Doctor is gone to Rice Lake,
fishing; Charley is cultivating mangels; the Squire is haying, and I am
here alone, with a pencil in hand and a sheet of blank paper before me.
I would far rather be at work. In fact, I have only just come in from
the field.
Now, what shall I say? It will do no good to apologize for the
deficiencies of the book. If the critics condescend to notice it at
all, nothing I can say will propitiate their favor, or moderate their
censure. They are an independent set of fellows! I know them well, I am
an old editor myself, and nothing would please me better than to sit
down and write a slashing criticism of these “Talks on Manures.”
But I am denied that pleasure. The critics have the floor.
All I will say here, is, that the book is what it pretends to be.
Some people seem to think that the “Deacon” is a fictitious character.
Nothing of the kind. He is one of the oldest farmers in town, and
lives on the farm next to me. I have the very highest respect for him.
I have tried to report him fully and correctly. Of my own share in the
conversations I will say little, and of the Doctor’s nothing. My own
views are honestly given. I hold myself responsible for them. I may
contradict in one chapter what I have asserted in another. And so,
probably, has the Deacon. I do not know whether this is or is not the
case. I know very well that on many questions “much can be said on both
sides”--and very likely the Deacon is sometimes on the south side of the
fence and I on the north side; and in the next chapter you may find the
Deacon on the north side, and where would you have me go, except to the
south side? We cannot see both sides of the fence, if both of us walk on
the same side!
I fear some will be disappointed at not finding a particular subject
discussed.
I have talked about those things which occupy my own thoughts. There are
some things not worth thinking about. There are others beyond my reach.
I have said nothing about manures for cotton or for the sugar-cane--not
because I feel no interest in the matter, but because I have had no
experience in the cultivation of these important crops. I might have
told what the crops contain, and could have given minute directions for
furnishing in manure the exact quantity of plant-food which the crops
remove from the soil. But I have no faith in such a system of farming.
The few cotton-planters I have had the pleasure of seeing were men of
education and rare ability. I cannot undertake to offer them advice. But
I presume they will find that, if they desire to increase the growth of
the cotton-plant, in nine cases out of ten they can do it, provided the
soil is properly worked, by supplying a manure containing available
nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash. But the _proper proportion_ of
these ingredients of plant-food must be ascertained by experiment, and
not from a mere analysis of the cotton-plant.
I have much faith in artificial manures. They will do great things for
American agriculture--directly, and indirectly. Their general use will
lead to a higher system of farming--to better cultivation, more root and
fodder crops, improved stock, higher feeding, and richer manure. But it
has been no part of my object to unduly extol the virtues of commercial
manures. That may be left to the manufacturers.
My sympathy is with the farmer, and especially with the farmer of
moderate means, who finds that improved farming calls for more and more
capital. I would like to encourage such a man. And so, in point of fact,
would the Deacon, though he often talks as though a man who tries to
improve his farm will certainly come to poverty. Such men as the
Deacon are useful neighbors if their doubts, and head-shakings, and
shoulder-shruggings lead a young and enthusiastic farmer to put more
energy, industry, and economy into his business. It is well to listen
to the Deacon--to hear all his objections, and then to keep a sharp
look-out for the dangers and difficulties, and _go-ahead_.
TALKS ON MANURES.
CHAPTER I.
FARMING AS A BUSINESS.
“Farming is a poor business,” said the Deacon. “Take the corn crop.
Thirty bushels per acre is a fair average, worth, at 75 cents per
bushel, $22.50. If we reckon that, for each bushel of corn, we get 100
lbs. of stalks, this would be a ton and a half per acre, worth at $5 per
ton $7.50.”
Total receipts per acre for corn crop $30 00
Expenses.--Preparing the land for the crop $5 00
Planting and seed 1 50
Cultivating, three times,
twice in a row both ways 5 00
Hoeing twice 3 00
Cutting up the corn 1 50
Husking and drawing in the corn 4 00
Drawing in the stalks, etc. 1 00
Shelling, and drawing to market 2 00
Total cost of the crop ----- $23 00
------
Profit per acre $7 00
“And from this,” said the Deacon, “we have to deduct interest on land
and taxes. I tell you, farming is a poor business.”
“Yes,” I replied, “_poor_ farming is a _very_ poor business. But _good_
farming, if we have good prices, is as good a business as I want, and
withal as pleasant. A good farmer raises 75 bushels of corn per acre,
instead of 30. He would get for his crop, including stalks
$75 00
Expenses.--Preparing land for the crop $5 00
Planting and seed 1 50
Cultivating 5 00
Hoeing 3 00
Cutting up the corn 1 50
Husking and drawing 10 00
Drawing in the stalks 3 00
Shelling, etc. 6 00
----- $35 00
------
Profit per acre $40 00
Take another case, which actually occurred in this neighborhood. The
Judge is a good farmer, and particularly successful in raising potatoes
and selling them at a good price to hotels and private families. He
cultivates very thoroughly, plants in hills, and puts a handful of
ashes, plaster, and hen-manure, on the hill.
In 1873, his crop of Peachblows was at the rate of 208 bushels per acre.
Of these, 200 bushels were sold at 60 cents per bushel. There were 8
bushels of small potatoes, worth say 12½ cents per bushel, to feed out
to stock.
Mr. Sloe, who lives on an adjoining farm, had three acres of Peachblow
potatoes the same year. The yield was 100 bushels per acre--of which 25
bushels were not large enough for market, he got 50 cents per bushel for
the others.
The account of the two crops stands as follows:
-----------------------------------------+----------+---------
Expenses Per Acre: | Mr. Sloe | Judge.
-----------------------------------------+----------+---------
Plowing, harrowing, rolling, marking, | |
planting and covering | $ 8 00 | $ 8 00
Seed | 5 00 | 5 00
Hoeing, cultivating, etc. | 7 00 | 10 00
Digging | 10 00 | 10 00
+----------+---------
| 30 00 | 33 00
_Receipts Per Acre_: | |
75 bushels, @ 50c | 37 50 |
25 ” @ 12½c | 3 12 |
+----------+---------
| 40 62 |
200 bushels, @ 60c | | 120 00
8 ” @ 12½c | | 1 00
| +---------
| | 121 00
+----------+---------
Profit per acre | $10 62 | $98 00
-----------------------------------------+----------+---------
Since then, Mr. Sloe has been making and using more manure, and the year
before last (1875) his crop of potatoes averaged over 200 bushels per
acre, and on the sandy knolls, where more manure was applied, the yield
was at least 250 bushels per acre.
“Nevertheless,” said the Deacon, “I do not believe in ‘high farming.’ It
will not pay.”
“Possibly not,” I replied. “It depends on circumstances; and these we
will talk about presently. High farming aims to get large crops every
year. _Good_ farming produces equally large crops per acre, but not so
many of them. This is what I am trying to do on my own farm. I am aiming
to get 35 bushels of wheat per acre, 80 bushels of shelled corn, 50
bushels of barley, 90 bushels of oats, 300 bushels of potatoes, and
1,200 bushels of mangel-wurzel per acre, on the average. I can see no
way of paying high wages except by raising large crops _per acre_. But
if I get these large crops it does not necessarily follow that I am
practising ‘high farming.’”
To illustrate: Suppose I should succeed in getting such crops by
adopting the following plan. I have a farm of nearly 300 acres, one
quarter of it being low, alluvial land, too wet for cultivation, but
when drained excellent for pasturing cows or for timothy meadows.
I drain this land, and after it is drained I dam up some of the streams
that flow into it or through it, and irrigate wherever I can make the
water flow. So much for the low land.
The upland portion of the farm, containing say 200 acres, exclusive of
fences, roads, buildings, garden, etc., is a naturally fertile loam, as
good as the average wheat land of Western New York. But it is, or was,
badly “run down.” It had been what people call “worked to death;”
although, in point of fact, it had not been half-worked. Some said it
was “wheated to death,” others that it had been “oated to death,” others
that it had been “grassed to death,” and one man said to me, “That field
has had sheep on it until they have gnawed every particle of vegetable
matter out of the soil, and it will not now produce enough to pasture a
flock of geese.” And he was not far from right--notwithstanding the fact
that sheep are thought to be, and are, the best animals to enrich land.
But let me say, in passing, that I have since raised on that same field
50 bushels of barley per acre, 33 bushels of Diehl wheat, a great crop
of clover, and last year, on a part of it, over 1,000 bushels of
mangel-wurzel per acre.
But this is a digression. Let us carry out the illustration. What does
this upland portion of the farm need? It needs underdraining, thorough
cultivation, and _plenty of manure_. If I had plenty of manure, I could
adopt high farming. But where am I to get plenty of manure for 200 acres
of land? “Make it,” says the Deacon. Very good; but what shall I make it
of? “Make it out of your straw and stalks and hay.” So I do, but all the
straw and stalks and hay raised on the farm when I bought it would not
make as much manure as “high farming” requires for five acres of land.
And is this not true of half the farms in the United States to-day? What
then, shall we do?
The best thing to do, _theoretically_, is this: Any land that is
producing a fair crop of grass or clover, let it lie. Pasture it or mow
it for hay. If you have a field of clayey or stiff loamy land, break it
up in the fall, and summer-fallow it the next year, and sow it to wheat
and seed it down with clover. Let it lie two or three years in clover.
Then break it up in July or August, “fall-fallow” it, and sow it with
barley the next spring, and seed it down again with clover.
Sandy or light land, that it will not pay to summer-fallow, should have
all the manure you can make, and be plowed and planted with corn.
Cultivate thoroughly, and either seed it down with the corn in August,
or sow it to barley or oats next spring, and seed it down with clover.
I say, _theoretically_ this is the best plan to adopt. But practically
it may not be so, because it may be absolutely necessary that we should
raise something that we can sell at once, and get money to live upon or
pay interest and taxes. But the gentlemen who so strenuously advocate
high farming, are not perhaps often troubled with considerations of this
kind. Meeting them, therefore, on their own ground, I contend that in my
case “high farming” would not be as profitable as the plan hinted at
above.
The rich alluvial low land is to be pastured or mown; the upland to be
broken up only when necessary, and when it is plowed to be plowed well
and worked thoroughly, and got back again into clover as soon as
possible. The hay and pasture from the low land, and the clover and
straw and stalks from the upland, would enable us to keep a good many
cows and sheep, with more or less pigs, and there would be a big pile of
manure in the yard every spring. And when this is once obtained, you can
get along much more pleasantly and profitably.
“But,” I may be asked, “when you have got this pile of manure can not
you adopt high farming?” No. My manure pile would contain say: 60 tons
of clover-hay; 20 tons wheat-straw; 25 tons oat, barley, and pea-straw;
40 tons meadow-hay; 20 tons corn-stalks; 20 tons corn, oats, and other
grain; 120 tons mangel-wurzel and turnips.
This would give me about 500 tons of well-rotted manure. I should want
200 tons of this for the mangels and turnips, and the 300 tons I should
want to top-dress 20 acres of grass land intended for corn and potatoes
the next year. My pile of manure, therefore, is all used up on 25 to 30
acres of land. In other words, I use the unsold produce of 10 acres to
manure one. Is this “high farming?” I think in my circumstances it is
good farming, but it is not high farming. It gives me large crops per
acre, but I have comparatively few acres in crops that are sold from the
farm.
“High farming,” if the term is to have any definite meaning at all
should only be used to express the idea of a farm so managed that the
soil is rich enough to produce maximum crops _every year_. If you adopt
the system of rotation quite general in this section--say, 1st year,
corn on sod; 2d, barley or oats; 3d, wheat; 4th, clover for hay and
afterwards for seed; 5th, timothy and clover for hay; and then the 6th
year plowed up for corn again--it would be necessary to make the land
rich enough to produce say 100 bushels shelled corn, 50 bushels of
barley, 40 bushels of wheat, 3 tons clover-hay, and 5 bushels of
clover-seed, and 3 tons clover and timothy-hay per acre. This would be
_moderate_ high farming. If we introduced lucern, Italian rye-grass,
corn-fodder, and mangel-wurzel into the rotation, we should need still
richer land to produce a maximum growth of these crops. In other words,
we should need more manure.
The point I am endeavoring to get at, is this: Where you want a farm to
be self-supporting--where you depend solely on the produce of the farm
to supply manure--it is a sheer impossibility to adopt high farming _on
the whole of your land_. I want to raise just as large crops per acre as
the high farmers, but there is no way of doing this, unless we go
outside the farm for manure, without raising a smaller area of such
crops as are sold from the farm.
I do not wish any one to suppose that I am opposed to high farming.
There is occasionally a farm where it may be practised with advantage,
but it seems perfectly clear to my mind that as long as there is such an
unlimited supply of _land_, and such a limited supply of fertilizers,
most of us will find it more profitable to develop the latent stores of
plant-food lying dormant in the soil rather than to buy manures. And it
is certain that you can not adopt high farming without either buying
manure directly, or buying food to feed to animals that shall make
manure on the farm.
And you must recollect that high farming requires an increased supply of
labor, and hired help is a luxury almost as costly as artificial
fertilizers.
We have heard superficial thinkers object to agricultural papers on the
ground that they were urging farmers to improve their land and produce
larger crops, “while,” say they, “we are producing so much already that
it will not sell for as much as it costs to produce it.” My plan of
improved agriculture does not necessarily imply the production of any
more wheat or of any more grain of any kind that we sell than we raise
at present. I would simply raise it on fewer acres, and thus lessen the
expense for seed, cultivation, harvesting, etc. I would raise 30 bushels
of wheat per acre every third year, instead of 10 bushels every year.
If we summer-fallowed and plowed under clover in order to produce the 30
bushels of wheat once in three years, instead of 10 bushels every year,
no more produce of any kind would be raised. But my plan does not
contemplate such a result. On my own farm I seldom summer-fallow, and
never plow under clover. I think I can enrich the farm nearly as much by
feeding the clover to animals and returning the manure to the land. The
animals do not take out more than from five to ten per cent of the more
valuable elements of plant-food from the clover. And so my plan, while
it produces as much and no more grain to sell, adds greatly to the
fertility of the land, and gives an increased production of beef,
mutton, wool, butter, cheese, and pork.
“But what is a man to do who is poor and has poor land?” If he has good
health, is industrious, economical, and is possessed of a fair share of
good common sense, he need have no doubt as to being able to renovate
his farm and improve his own fortune.
Faith in good farming is the first requisite. If this is weak, it will
be strengthened by exercise. If you have not faith, act as though you
had.
Work hard, but do not be a drudge. A few hours’ vigorous labor will
accomplish a great deal, and encourage you to continued effort. Be
prompt, systematic, cheerful, and enthusiastic. Go to bed early and get
up when you wake. But take sleep enough. A man had better be in bed than
at the tavern or grocery. Let not friends, even, keep you up late;
“manners is manners, but still your elth’s your elth.”
“But what has this to do with good farming?” More than chemistry and all
the science of the schools. Agriculture is an art and must be followed
as such. Science will help--help enormously--but it will never enable us
to dispense with industry. Chemistry throws great light on the art of
cooking, but a farmer’s wife will roast a turkey better than a Liebig.
When Mr. James O. Sheldon, of Geneva. N.Y., bought his farm, his entire
crop of hay the first year was 76 loads. He kept stock, and bought more
or less grain and bran, and in eleven years from that time his farm
produced 430 loads of hay, afforded pasture for his large herd of
Shorthorn cattle, and produced quite as much grain as when he first took
it.
Except in the neighborhood of large cities, “high farming” may not pay,
owing to the fact that we have so much land. But whether this is so or
not, there can be no doubt that the only profitable system of farming is
to raise large crops on such land as we cultivate. High farming gives us
large crops, and _many of them_. At present, while we have so much land
in proportion to population, we must, perhaps, be content with large
crops of grain, and few of them. We must adopt the slower but less
expensive means of enriching our land from natural sources, rather than
the quicker, more artificial, and costly means adopted by many farmers
in England, and by market gardeners, seed-growers, and nurserymen in
this country. Labor is so high that we can not afford to raise a small
crop. If we sow but half the number of acres, and double the yield, we
should quadruple our profits. I have made up my mind to let the land lie
in clover three years, instead of two. This will lessen the number of
acres under cultivation, and enable us to bestow more care in plowing
and cleaning it. And the land will be richer, and produce better crops.
The atmosphere is capable of supplying a certain quantity of ammonia to
the soil in rains and dews every year, and by giving the wheat crop a
three years supply instead of two years, we gain so much. Plaster the
clover, top-dress it in the fall, if you have the manure, and stimulate
its growth in every way possible, and consume all the clover on the
land, or in the barn-yard. Do not sell a single ton; let not a weed
grow, and the land will certainly improve.
The first object should be to destroy weeds. I do not know how it is in
other sections, but with us the majority of farms are completely overrun
with weeds. They are eating out the life of the land, and if something
is not done to destroy them, even exorbitantly high prices can not make
farming profitable. A farmer yesterday was contending that it did not
pay to summer-fallow. He has taken a run-down farm, and a year ago last
spring he plowed up ten acres of a field, and sowed it to barley and
oats. The remainder of the field he summer-fallowed, plowing it four
times, rolling and harrowing thoroughly after each plowing. After the
barley and oats were off, he plowed the land once, harrowed it and sowed
Mediterranean wheat. On the summer-fallow he drilled in Diehl wheat. He
has just threshed, and got 22 bushels per acre of Mediterranean wheat
after the spring crop, at one plowing, and 26 bushels per acre of Diehl
wheat on the summer-fallow. This, he said, would not pay, as it cost him
$20 per acre to summer-fallow, and he lost the use of the land for one
season. Now this may be all true, and yet it is no argument against
summer-fallowing. Wait a few years. Farming is slow work. Mr. George
Geddes remarked to me, when I told him I was trying to renovate a
run-down farm, “you will find it the work of your life.” We ought not to
expect a big crop on poor, run-down land, simply by plowing it three or
four times in as many months. Time is required for the chemical changes
to take place in the soil. But watch the effect on the clover for the
next two years, and when the land is plowed again, see if it is not in
far better condition than the part not summer-fallowed. I should expect
the clover on the summer-fallow to be fully one-third better in
quantity, and of better quality than on the other part, and this extra
quantity of clover will make an extra quantity of good manure, and thus
we have the means of going on with the work of improving the farm.
“Yes,” said the Doctor, “and there will also be more clover-roots in the
soil.”
“But I can not afford to wait for clover, and summer-fallowing,” writes
an intelligent New York gentleman, a dear lover of good stock, who has
bought an exhausted New England farm, “I must have a portion of it
producing good crops right off.” Very well. A farmer with plenty of
money can do wonders in a short time. Set a gang of ditchers to work,
and put in underdrains where most needed. Have teams and plows enough to
do the work rapidly. As soon as the land is drained and plowed, put on a
heavy roller. Then sow 500 lbs. of Peruvian guano per acre broadcast, or
its equivalent in some other fertilizer. Follow with a Shares’ harrow.
This will mellow the surface and cover the guano without disturbing the
sod. Follow with a forty-toothed harrow, and roll again, if needed,
working the land until there is three or four inches of fine, mellow
surface soil. Then mark off the land in rows as straight as an arrow,
and plant corn. Cultivate thoroughly, and kill every weed. If the
ditchers can not get through until it is too late to plant corn, drill
in beans on the last drained part of the field.
Another good crop to raise on a stock farm is corn-fodder. This can be
drilled in from time to time as the land can be got ready. Put on half a
ton of guano per acre and harrow in, and then mark off the rows three
feet apart, and drill in four bushels of corn per acre. Cultivate
thoroughly, and expect a great crop. By the last of July, the Ayrshire
cows will take kindly to the succulent corn-fodder, and with three or
four quarts of meal a day, it will enable each of them to make 10 lbs.
of butter a week.
For the pigs, sow a few acres of peas. These will do well on sod-land,
sown early or late, or a part early and a part late, as most convenient.
Sow broadcast and harrow in, 500 lbs. of Peruvian guano per acre and 200
lbs. of gypsum. Drill in three bushels of peas per acre, or sow
broadcast, and cover them with a Shares’ harrow. Commence to feed the
crop green as soon as the pods are formed, and continue to feed out the
crop, threshed or unthreshed, until the middle of November. Up to this
time the bugs do comparatively little damage. The pigs will thrive
wonderfully on this crop, and make the richest and best of manure.
I have little faith in any attempt to raise root crops on land not
previously well prepared. But as it is necessary to have some
mangel-wurzel and Swede turnips for the Ayrshire cows and long-wool
sheep next winter and spring, select the cleanest and richest land that
can be found that was under cultivation last season. If fall plowed, the
chances of success will be doubled. Plow the land two or three times,
and cultivate, harrow, and roll until it is as mellow as a garden. Sow
400 lbs. of Peruvian guano and 300 lbs. of good superphosphate per acre
broadcast, and harrow them in. Ridge up the land into ridges 2½ to 3 ft.
apart, with a double mould-board plow. Roll down the ridges with a light
roller, and drill in the seed. Sow the mangel-wurzel in May--the earlier
the better--and the Swedes as soon afterwards as the land can be
thoroughly prepared. Better delay until June rather than sow on rough
land.
The first point on such a farm will be to attend to the grass land. This
affords the most hopeful chance of getting good returns the first year.
But no time is to be lost. Sow 500 lbs. of Peruvian guano per acre on
all the grass land and on the clover, with 200 lbs. of gypsum in
addition on the latter. If this is sown early enough, so that the spring
rains dissolve it and wash it into the soil, great crops of grass may be
expected.
“But will it pay?” My friend in New York is a very energetic and
successful business man, and he has a real love for farming, and I have
no sort of doubt that, taking the New York business and the farm
together, they will afford a very handsome profit. Furthermore, I have
no doubt that if, after he has drained it, he would cover the whole farm
with 500 lbs. of Peruvian guano per acre, or its equivalent, it would
pay him better than any other agricultural operation he is likely to
engage in. By the time it was on the land the cost would amount to about
$20 per acre. If he sells no more grass or hay from the farm than he
would sell if he did not use the guano, this $20 may very properly be
added to the permanent capital invested in the farm. And in this aspect
of the case, I have no hesitation in saying it will pay a high rate of
interest. His bill for labor will be as much in one case as in the
other; and if he uses the guano he will probably double his crops. His
grass lands will carry twenty cows instead of ten, and if he raises the
corn-fodder and roots, he can probably keep thirty cows better than he
could otherwise keep a dozen; and, having to keep a herdsman in either
case, the cost of labor will not be much increased. “But you think it
will not pay?” It will probably not pay _him_. I do not think _his_
business would pay me if I lived on my farm, and went to New York only
once or twice a week. If there is one business above all others that
requires constant attention, it is farming--and especially
stock-farming. But my friend is right in saying that he cannot afford to
wait to enrich his land by clover and summer-fallowing. His land costs
too much; he has a large barn and everything requisite to keep a large
stock of cattle and sheep. The interest on farm and buildings, and the
money expended in labor, would run on while the dormant matter in the
soil was slowly becoming available under the influence of good tillage.
The large barn must be filled at once, and the only way to do this is to
apply manure with an unsparing hand. If he lived on the farm, I should
have no doubt that, by adopting this course, and by keeping improved
stock, and feeding liberally, he could make money. Perhaps he can find a
man who will successfully manage the farm under his direction, but the
probabilities are that his present profit and pleasure will come from
the gratification of his early love for country life.
CHAPTER II.
WHAT IS MANURE?
“What is the good of asking such a question as that?” said the Deacon;
“we all know what manure is.”
“Well, then,” I replied, “tell us what it is?”
“_It is anything that will make crops grow better and bigger_,” replied
the Deacon.
“That is not a bad definition,” said I; “but let us see if it is a true
one. You have two rows of cabbage in the garden, and you water one row,
and the plants grow bigger and better. Is _water_ manure? You cover a
plant with a hand-glass, and it grows bigger and better. Is a hand-glass
manure? You shelter a few plants, and they grow bigger and better. Is
shelter manure? You put some pure sand round a few plants, and they grow
bigger and better. Is pure sand manure? I think we shall have to reject
the Deacon’s definition.”
Let us hear what the Doctor has to say on the subject.
“Manure,” replied the Doctor, “is the _food of plants_.”
“That is a better definition,” said I; “but this is really not answering
the question. You say manure is plant-food. But what is plant-food?”
“Plant-food,” said the Doctor, “is composed of twelve elements, and,
possibly, sometimes one or two more, which we need not here talk about.
Four of these elements are gases, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and
nitrogen. When a plant or animal is burnt, these gases are driven off.
The ashes which remain are composed of potash, soda, lime, and magnesia;
sulphuric acid, phosphoric acid, chlorine, and silica. In other words,
the ‘food of plants’ is composed of four organic, or gaseous elements,
and eight inorganic, or mineral elements, of which four have acid and
four alkaline properties.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” said the Deacon, “I am glad to know what manure is.
It is the food of plants, and the food of plants is composed of four
gases, four acid and four alkaline elements. I seem to know all about
it. All I have wanted to make my land rich was plenty of manure, and now
I shall know where to get it--oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen;
these four atmospheric elements. Then potash, soda, magnesia, and lime.
I know what these four are. Then sulphur, phosphorous, silica (sand,)
and chlorine (salt). I shall soon have rich land and big crops.”
Charley, who has recently come home from college, where he has been
studying chemistry, looked at the Deacon, and was evidently puzzled to
understand him. Turning to the Doctor, Charley asked modestly if what
the Doctor had said in regard to the composition of plant food could not
be said of the composition of all our animals and plants.
“Certainly,” replied the Doctor, “all our agricultural plants and all
our animals, man included, are composed of these twelve elements,
oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen; phosphorus, sulphur, silica,
chlorine, potash, soda, magnesia, and lime.”
Charley said something about lime, potash, and soda, not being
“elements;” and something about silica and chlorine not being found in
animals.
“Yes,” said I, “and he has left out _iron_, which is an important
constituent of all our farm crops and animals.” Neither the Doctor nor
the Deacon heard our remarks. The Deacon, who loves an argument,
exclaimed: “I thought I knew all about it. You told us that manure was
the food of plants, and that the food of plants was composed of the
above twelve elements; and now you tell us that man and beast, fruit and
flower, grain and grass, root, stem, and branch, all are composed or
made up of these same dozen elements. If I ask you what bread is made
of, you say it is composed of the dozen elements aforesaid. If I ask
what wheat-straw is made of, you answer, the _dozen_. If I ask what a
thistle is made of, you say the dozen. There are a good many milk-weeds
in my strawberry patch, and I am glad to know that the milk-weed and the
strawberry are both composed of the same dozen elements. Manure is the
food of plants, and the food of plants is composed of the above dozen
elements, and every plant and animal that we eat is also composed of
these same dozen elements, and so I suppose there is no difference
between an onion and an omelet, or between bread and milk, or between
mangel-wurzel and manure.”
“The difference,” replied the Doctor, “is one of proportion. Mangels and
manure are both composed of the same elements. In fact, mangels make
good manure, and good manure makes good mangels.”
The Deacon and the Doctor sat down to a game of backgammon, and Charley
and I continued the conversation more seriously.
CHAPTER III.
SOMETHING ABOUT PLANT-FOOD.
“The Doctor is in the main correct,” said I; “but he does not fully
answer the question, ‘What is manure?’ To say that manure is plant-food,
does not cover the whole ground. All soils on which plants grow, contain
more or less plant-food. A plant can not create an atom of potash. It
can not get it from the atmosphere. We find potash in the plant, and we
know that it got it from the soil and we are certain, therefore, that
the soil contains potash. And so of all the other mineral elements of
plants. A soil that will produce a thistle, or a pig-weed, contains
plant-food. And so the definition of the Doctor is defective, inasmuch
as it makes no distinction between soil and manure. Both contain
plant-food.”
“What is your definition of manure?” asked Charley; “it would seem as
though we all knew what manure was. We have got a great heap of it in
the yard, and it is fermenting nicely.”
“Yes,” I replied, “we are making more manure on the farm this winter
than ever before. Two hundred pigs, 120 large sheep, 8 horses, 11 cows,
and a hundred head of poultry make considerable manure; and it is a good
deal of work to clean out the pens, pile the manure, draw it to the
field, and apply it to the crops. We ought to know something about it;
but we might work among manure all our lives, and not know what manure
is. At any rate, we might not be able to define it accurately. I will,
however, try my hand at a definition.
“Let us assume that we have a field that is free from stagnant water at
all seasons of the year; that the soil is clean, mellow, and well worked
seven inches deep, and in good order for putting in a crop. What the
coming ‘_season_’ will be we know not. It may be what we call a hot, dry
summer, or it may be cool and moist, or it may be partly one and partly
the other. The ‘season’ is a great element of uncertainty in all our
farming calculations; but we know that we shall have a season of some
kind. We have the promise of seed-time and harvest, and we have never
known the promise to fail us. Crops, however, vary very much, according
to the season; and it is necessary to bear this fact in mind. Let us say
that the sun and heat, and rain and dews, or what we call ‘the season,’
is capable of producing 50 bushels of wheat per acre, but that the soil
I have described above, does not produce over 20 bushels per acre. There
is no mechanical defect in the soil. The seed is good, it is put in
properly, and at the right time, and in the best manner. No weeds choke
the wheat plants or rob them of their food; but that field does not
produce as much wheat by 30 bushels per acre as the _season_ is capable
of producing. Why? The answer is evident. _Because the wheat plants do
not find food enough in the soil._ Now, anything that will furnish this
food, anything that will cause that field to produce what the climate or
season is capable of producing, is manure. A gardener may increase his
crops by artificial heat, or by an increased supply of water, but this
is not manure. The effect is due to improved climatic conditions. It has
nothing to do with the question of manure. We often read in the
agricultural papers about ‘_shade_ as manure.’ We might just as well
talk about _sunlight_ as ‘manure.’ The effects observed should be
referred to modifications of the climate or season; and so in regard to
mulching. A good mulch may often produce a larger increase of growth
than an application of manure. But mulch, proper, is not manure. It is
climate. It checks evaporation of moisture from the soil. We might as
well speak of rain as manure as to call a mulch manure. In fact, an
ordinary shower in summer is little more than a mulch. It does not reach
the roots of plants; and yet we see the effect of the shower immediately
in the increased vigor of the plants. They are full of sap, and the
drooping leaves look refreshed. We say the rain has revived them, and so
it has; but probably not a particle of the rain has entered into the
circulation of the plant. The rain checked evaporation from the soil and
from the leaves. A cool night refreshes the plants, and fills the leaves
with sap, precisely in the same way. All these fertilizing effects,
however, belong to climate. It is inaccurate to associate either
mulching, sunshine, shade, heat, dews, or rain, with the question of
manure, though the effect may in certain circumstances be precisely the
same.”
Charley evidently thought I was wandering from the point. “You think,
then,” said he, “manure is _plant-food that the soil needs?_”
“Yes,” said I, “that is a very good definition--very good, indeed,
though not absolutely accurate, because manure is manure, whether a
particular soil needs it or not.” Unobserved by us, the Deacon and the
Doctor had been listening to our talk. --“I would like,” said the
Deacon, “to hear you give a better definition than Charley has given.”
--“Manure,” said I, “is anything containing an element or elements of
plant-food, which, if the soil needed it, would, if supplied in
sufficient quantity, and in an available condition, produce, according
to soil, season, climate, and variety, a maximum crop.”
CHAPTER IV.
NATURAL MANURE.
We often hear about “natural” manure. I do not like the term, though I
believe it originated with me. It is not accurate; not definite enough.
“I do not know what you mean by natural manure,” said the Deacon,
“unless it is the droppings of animals.” --“To distinguish them,
I suppose,” said the Doctor, “from artificial manures, such as
superphosphate, sulphate of ammonia, and nitrate of soda.” --“No; that
is not how I used the term. A few years ago, we used to hear much in
regard to the ‘exhaustion of soils.’ I thought this phrase conveyed a
wrong idea. When new land produces large crops, and when, after a few
years, the crops get less and less, we were told that the farmers were
exhausting their land. I said, no; the farmers are not exhausting the
_soil_; they are merely exhausting the accumulated plant-food in the
soil. In other words, they are using up the _natural manure_.
“Take my own farm. Fifty years ago, it was covered with a heavy growth
of maple, beech, black walnut, oak, and other trees. These trees had
shed annual crops of leaves for centuries. The leaves rot on the ground;
the trees also, age after age. These leaves and other organic matter
form what I have called natural manure. When the land is cleared up and
plowed, this natural manure decays more rapidly than when the land lies
undisturbed; precisely as a manure-pile will ferment and decay more
rapidly if turned occasionally, and exposed to the air. The plowing and
cultivating renders this natural manure more readily available. The
leaves decompose, and furnish food for the growing crop.”
EXHAUSTION OF THE SOIL.
“You think, then,” said the Doctor, “that when a piece of land is
cleared of the forest, harrowed, and sown to wheat; plowed and planted
to corn, and the process repeated again and again, until the land no
longer yields profitable crops, that it is the ‘natural manure,’ and not
the soil, that is exhausted?”
“I think the _soil_, at any rate, is not exhausted, and I can easily
conceive of a case where even the natural manure is very far from being
all used up.”
“Why, then,” asked the Deacon, “is the land so poor that it will
scarcely support a sheep to the acre?”
“Simply because the natural manure and other plant-food which the soil
contains is not in an available condition. It lies dead and inert. It is
not soluble, and the roots of the plants cannot get enough of it to
enable them to thrive; and in addition to this, you will find as a
matter of fact that these poor ‘exhausted’ farms are infested with
weeds, which rob the growing crops of a large part of the scanty supply
of available plant-food.”
“But these weeds,” said the Deacon, “are not removed from the farm. They
rot on the land; nothing is lost.”
“True,” said I, “but they, nevertheless, rob the growing crops of
available plant-food. The annual supply of plant-food, instead of being
used to grow useful plants, is used to grow weeds.”
“I understand that,” said the Deacon, “but if the weeds are left on the
land, and the useful plants are sold, the farmer who keeps his land
clean would exhaust his land faster than the careless farmer who lets
his land lie until it is overrun with thistles, briars, and pig-weed.
You agricultural writers, who are constantly urging us to farm better
and grow larger crops, seem to overlook this point. As you know, I do
not take much stock in chemical theories as applied to agriculture, but
as you do, here is a little extract I cut from an agricultural paper,
that seems to prove that the better you work your land, and the larger
crops you raise, the sooner you exhaust your land.”
The Deacon put on his spectacles, drew his chair nearer the lamp on the
table, and read the following:
“There is, on an average, about one-fourth of a pound of potash to every
one hundred pounds of soil, and about one-eighth of a pound of
phosphoric acid, and one-sixteenth of a pound of sulphuric acid. If the
potatoes and the tops are continually removed from the soil, it will
soon exhaust the potash. If the wheat and straw are removed, it will
soon exhaust the phosphate of lime; if corn and the stalks, it will soon
exhaust the sulphuric acid. Unless there is a rotation, or the material
the plant requires is supplied from abroad, your crops will soon run
out, though the soil will continue rich for other plants.”
“That extract,” said I, “carries one back twenty-five years. We used to
have article after article in this strain. We were told that ‘always
taking meal out of the tub soon comes to the bottom,’ and always taking
potash and phosphoric acid from the soil will soon exhaust the supply.
But, _practically_, there is really little danger of our exhausting the
land. It does not pay. The farmer’s resources will be exhausted long
before he can exhaust his farm.”
“Assuming,” said the Doctor, who is fond of an argument, “that the above
statement is true, let us look at the facts. An acre of soil, 12 inches
deep, would weigh about 1,600 tons; and if, as the writer quoted by the
Deacon states, the soil contains 4 ozs. of potash in every 100 lbs. of
soil, it follows that an acre of soil, 12 inches deep, contains 8,000
lbs. of potash. Now, potatoes contain about 20 per cent of dry matter,
and this dry matter contains say, 4 per cent of ash, half of which is
potash. It follows, therefore, that 250 bushels of potatoes contain
about 60 lbs. of potash. If we reckon that the tops contain 20 lbs.
more, or 80 lbs. in all, it follows that the acre of soil contains
potash enough to grow an _annual_ crop of 250 bushels of potatoes per
acre for one hundred years.”
“I know farmers,” said Charley, “who do not get over 50 bushels of
potatoes per acre, and in that case the potash would last five hundred
years, as the weeds grown with the crop are left on the land, and do
not, according to the Deacon, exhaust the soil.”
“Good for you, Charley,” said the Doctor. “Now let us see about the
phosphoric acid, of which the soil, according to the above statement,
contains only half as much as it contains of potash, or 4,000 lbs. per
acre.
“A crop of wheat of 30 bushels per acre,” continued the Doctor,
“contains in the grain about 26 lbs. of ash, and we will say that half
of this ash is phosphoric acid, or 13 lbs. Allowing that the straw,
chaff, etc., contain 7 lbs. more, we remove from the soil in a crop of
wheat of 30 bushels per acre, 20 lbs. of phosphoric acid, and so,
according to the above estimate, an acre of soil contains phosphoric
acid to produce annually a crop of wheat and straw of 30 bushels per
acre for _two hundred years_.
“The writer of the paragraph quoted by the Deacon,” continued the
Doctor, “selected the crops and elements best suited to his purpose, and
yet, according to his own estimate, there is sufficient potash and
phosphoric acid in the first 12 inches of the soil to enable us to raise
unusually large crops until the next Centennial in 1976.
“But let us take another view of the subject,” continued the Doctor. “No
intelligent farmer removes all the potatoes _and tops_, all the wheat,
straw, and chaff, or all the corn and stalks from his farm. According to
Dr. Salisbury, a crop of corn of 75 bushels per acre removes from the
soil 600 lbs. of ash, but the _grain_ contains only 46 lbs. The other
554 lbs. is contained in the stalks, etc., all of which are usually
retained on the farm. It follows from this, that when only the grain is
sold off the farm, it takes more than thirteen crops to remove as much
mineral matter from the soil as is contained in the whole of one crop.
Again, the ash of the grain contains less than 3 per cent of sulphuric
acid, so that the 46 lbs. of ash, in 75 bushels of corn, contains less
than 1½ lbs. of sulphuric acid, and thus, if an acre of soil contains
2,000 lbs. of sulphuric acid, we have sufficient for an annual crop of
75 bushels per acre for fifteen hundred years!
“As I said before,” continued the Doctor, “intelligent farmers seldom
sell their straw, and they frequently purchase and consume on the farm
nearly as much bran, shorts, etc., as is sent to market with the grain
they sell. In the ‘Natural History of New York,’ it is stated that an
acre of wheat in Western New York, of 30 bushels per acre, including
straw, chaff, etc., removes from the soil 144 lbs. of mineral matter.
Genesee wheat usually yields about 80 per cent. of flour. This flour
contains only 0.7 per cent of mineral matter, while fine middlings
contain 4 per cent; coarse middlings, 5½ per cent; shorts, 8 per cent,
and bran 8½ per cent of mineral matter or ash. It follows from this,
that out of the 144 lbs. of mineral matter in the crop of wheat, less
than 10 lbs. is contained in the flour. The remaining 134 lbs. is found
in the straw, chaff, bran, shorts, etc., which a good farmer is almost
sure to feed out on his farm. But even if the farmer feeds out none of
his wheat-bran, but sells it all with his wheat, the 30 bushels of wheat
remove from the soil only 26 lbs. of mineral matter; and it would take
more than five crops to remove as much mineral matter as one crop of
wheat and straw contains. Allowing that half the ash of wheat is
phosphoric acid, 30 bushels remove only 13 lbs. from the soil, and if
the soil contains 4,000 lbs., it will take three hundred and seven
crops, of 30 bushels each, to exhaust it.”
“That is to say,” said Charley, “if all the straw and chaff is retained
on the farm, and is returned to the land without loss of phosphoric
acid.”
“Yes,” said the Doctor, “and if all the bran and shorts, etc., were
retained on the farm, it would take eight hundred crops to exhaust the
soil of phosphoric acid; and it is admitted that of all the elements of
plant-food, phosphoric acid is the one first to be exhausted from the
soil.”
I have sold some timothy hay this winter, and propose to do so whenever
the price suits. But some of my neighbors, who do not hesitate to sell
their own hay, think I ought not to do so, because I “write for the
papers”! It ought to satisfy them to know that I bring back 30 cwt. of
bran for every ton of hay I sell. My rule is to sell nothing but wheat,
barley, beans, potatoes, clover-seed, apples, wool, mutton, beef, pork,
and butter. Everything else is consumed on the farm--corn, peas, oats,
mustard, rape, mangels, clover, straw, stalks, etc. Let us make a rough
estimate of how much is sold and how much retained on a hundred-acre
farm, leaving out the potatoes, beans, and live-stock. We have say:
Sold.
15 acres wheat, @ 40 bushels per acre 18 tons
5 ” barley, @ 50 ” ” 6 ”
15 ” clover seed, 4 ” ” 1¾ ton.
------
Total sold 25¾ tons.
Retained on the farm.
15 acres corn, @ 80 bushels per acre 33½ tons.
Corn stalks from do. 40 ”
5 acres barley straw 8 ”
10 ” oats and peas, equal 80 bushels of oats 12¾ ”
Straw from do. 20 ”
15 acres wheat-straw 25 ”
15 ” clover-hay 25 ”
Clover-seed straw 10 ”
15 acres pasture and meadow, equal 40 tons hay 40 ”
5 ” mustard, equal 10 tons hay 10 ”
5 ” rape, equal 10 tons hay 10 ”
5 ” mangels, 25 tons per acre, 15 ”
equal to 3 tons dry
Leaves from do. 3 ”
-------
Total retained on the farm 252¼ tons.
It would take a good many years to exhaust any ordinary soil by such a
course of cropping. Except, perhaps, the sandy knolls, I think there is
not an acre on my farm that would be exhausted in ten thousand years,
and as some portions of the low alluvial soil will grow crops without
manure, there will be an opportunity to give the poor, sandy knolls more
than their share of plant-food. In this way, notwithstanding the fact
that we sell produce and bring nothing back, I believe the whole farm
will gradually increase in productiveness. The plant-food annually
rendered available from the decomposition and disintegration of the
inert organic and mineral matter in the soil, will be more than equal to
that exported from the farm. If the soil becomes deficient in anything,
it is likely that it will be in phosphates, and a little superphosphate
or bone-dust might at any rate be profitably used on the rape, mustard,
and turnips.
The point in good farming is to develop from the latent stores in the
soil, and to accumulate enough available plant-food for the production
of the largest possible yield of those crops which we sell. In other
words, we want enough available plant-food in the soil to grow 40
bushels of wheat and 50 bushels of barley. I think the farmer who raises
10 tons for every ton he sells, will soon reach this point, and when
once reached, it is a comparatively easy matter to maintain this degree
of fertility.
WHY OUR CROPS ARE SO POOR.
“If the soil is so rich in plant-food,” said the Deacon, “I again ask,
why are our crops so poor?”
The Deacon said this very quietly. He did not seem to know that he had
asked one of the most important questions in the whole range of
agricultural science. It is a fact that a soil may contain enough
plant-food to produce a thousand large crops, and yet the crops we
obtain from it may be so poor as hardly to pay the cost of cultivation.
The plant-food is there, but the plants cannot get at it. It is not in
an available condition; it is not soluble. A case is quoted by Prof.
Johnson, where a soil was analyzed, and found to contain to the depth of
one foot 4,652 lbs. of nitrogen per acre, but only 63 lbs. of this was
in an available condition. And this is equally true of phosphoric acid,
potash, and other elements of plant-food. No matter how much plant-food
there may be in the soil, the only portion that is of any immediate
value is the small amount that is annually available for the growth of
crops.
HOW TO GET LARGER CROPS.
“I am tired of so much talk about plant-food,” said the Deacon; “what we
want to know is how to make our land produce larger crops of wheat,
corn, oats, barley, potatoes, clover, and grass.”
This is precisely what I am trying to show. On my own farm, the three
leading objects are (1) to get the land drained, (2) to make it clean
and mellow, and (3) to get available nitrogen for the cereal crops.
After the first two objects are accomplished, the measure of
productiveness will be determined by the amount of available nitrogen in
the soil. How to get available nitrogen, therefore, is my chief and
ultimate object in all the operations on the farm, and it is here that
science can help me. I know how to get nitrogen, but I want to get it in
the cheapest way, and then to be sure that I do not waste it.
There is one fact fully established by repeated experiment and general
experience--that 80 lbs. of available nitrogen per acre, applied in
manure, will almost invariably give us a greatly increased yield of
grain crops. I should expect, on my farm, that on land which, without
manure, would give me 15 bushels of wheat per acre, such a dressing of
manure would give me, in a favorable season, 35 or 40 bushels per acre,
with a proportional increase of straw; and, in addition to this, there
would be considerable nitrogen left for the following crop of clover. Is
it not worth while making an earnest effort to get this 80 lbs. of
available nitrogen?
I have on my farm many acres of low, mucky land, bordering on the creek,
that probably contain several thousand pounds of nitrogen per acre. So
long as the land is surcharged with water, this nitrogen, and other
plant-food, lies dormant. But drain it, and let in the air, and the
oxygen decomposes the organic matter, and ammonia and nitric acid are
produced. In other words, we get _available_ nitrogen and other
plant-food, and the land becomes capable of producing large crops of
corn and grass; and the crops obtained from this low, rich land, will
make manure for the poorer, upland portions of the farm.
CHAPTER V.
SWAMP-MUCK OR PEAT AS MANURE.
“It would pay you,” said the Deacon, “to draw out 200 or 300 loads of
muck from the swamp every year, and compost it with your manure.”
This may or may not be the case. It depends on the composition of the
muck, and how much labor it takes to handle it.
“What you should do,” said the Doctor, “is to commence at the creek, and
straighten it. Take a gang of men, and be with them with yourself, or
get a good foreman to direct operations. Commence at _a_, and straighten
the creek to _b_, and from _b_ to _c_ (see map on next page). Throw all
the rich, black muck in a heap by itself, separate from the sand. You,
or your foreman, must be there, or you will not get this done. A good
ditcher will throw out a great mass of this loose muck and sand in a
day; and you want him to dig, not think. You must do the thinking, and
tell him which is muck, and which is only sand and dirt. When thrown up,
this muck, in our dry, hot climate, will, in the course of a few months,
part with a large amount of water, and it can then be drawn to the barns
and stables, and used for bedding, or for composting with manure. Or if
you do not want to draw it to the barn, get some refuse lime from the
lime-kiln, and mix it with the muck after it has been thrown up a few
weeks, and is partially dry. Turn over the heap, and put a few bushels
of lime to every cord of the muck, mixing the lime and muck together,
leaving the heap in a compact form, and in good shape, to shed the rain.
“When you have straightened, and cleaned out, and deepened the creek,”
continued the Doctor, “commence at _z_ on the new creek, and cut a ditch
through the swamp to _y_. Throw the muck on one side, and the sand on
the other. This will give you some good, rich muck, and at the same time
drain your swamp. Then cut some _under-drains_ from _y_ towards the
higher land at _w_, _v_, and _h_, and from _f_ to _x_. These will drain
your land, and set free the inert plant-food, and such crops of timothy
as you will get from this swamp will astonish the natives, and your bill
for medical attendance and quinine will sink to zero.”
[Illustration: Map of Creek.]
The Doctor is right. There is money and health in the plan.
Prof. S. W. Johnson, as chemist to the Conn. State Ag. Society, made
accurate analyses of 33 samples of peat and muck sent him by gentlemen
from different parts of the State. The amount of potential ammonia in
the chemically dry peat was found to vary from 0.58 in the poorest, to
4.06 per cent in the richest samples. In other words, one deposit of
muck may contain seven times as much nitrogen as another, and it would
be well before spending much money in drawing out muck for manure to
send a sample of it to some good chemist. A bed of swamp-muck, easily
accessible, and containing 3 per cent of nitrogen, would be a mine of
wealth to any farmer. One ton of such muck, dry, would contain more
nitrogen than 7 tons of straw.
“It would be capital stuff,” said the Deacon, “to put in your pig-pens
to absorb the urine. It would make rich manure.”
“That is so,” said I, “and the weak point in my pig-breeding is the want
of sufficient straw. Pigs use up more bedding than any other animals.
I have over 200 pigs, and I could use a ton of dry muck to each pig
every winter to great advantage. The pens would be drier, the pigs
healthier, and the manure richer.”
The Doctor here interrupted us. “I see,” said he, “that the average
amount of ammonia in the 33 samples of dry peat analyzed by Professor
Johnson is 2.07 per cent. I had no idea that muck was so rich. Barn-yard
manure, or the manure from the horse stables in the cities, contains
only half a per cent (0.5) of ammonia, and it is an unusually rich
manure that contains one per cent. We are safe in saying that a ton of
dry muck, on the average, contains at least twice as much potential
ammonia as the average of our best and richest stable-manure.”
CHAPTER VI.
WHAT IS POTENTIAL AMMONIA?
“You say,” said the Deacon, “that dry muck contains twice as much
‘_potential ammonia_’ as manure?”
“Yes,” said the Doctor, “it contains three or four times as much as the
half-rotted straw and stalks you call manure.”
“But what do you mean,” asked the Deacon, “by ‘_potential_ ammonia?’”
“It is a term,” said the Doctor, “we used to hear much more frequently
than we do now. Ammonia is composed of 14 lbs. of nitrogen and 3 lbs. of
hydrogen; and if, on analysis, a guano or other manure was found to
contain, in whatever form, 7 per cent of nitrogen, the chemist reported
that he found in it 8½ per cent of ‘potential’ ammonia. Dried blood
contains no ammonia, but if it contained 14 per cent of nitrogen, the
chemist would be justified in saying it contained 17 per cent of
potential ammonia, from the fact that the dried blood, by fermentation,
is capable of yielding this amount of ammonia. We say a ton of common
horse-manure contains 10 or 12 lbs. of potential ammonia. If perfectly
fresh, it may not contain a particle of ammonia; but it contains
nitrogen enough to produce, by fermentation, 10 or 12 lbs. of ammonia.
And when it is said that dry swamp-muck contains, on the average, 2.07
per cent of potential ammonia, it simply means that it contains nitrogen
enough to produce this amount of ammonia. In point of fact, I suppose
muck, when dug fresh from the swamp, contains no ammonia. Ammonia is
quite soluble in water, and if there was any ammonia in the swamp-muck,
it would soon be washed out. The nitrogen, or ‘potential ammonia,’ in
the muck exists in an inert, insoluble form, and before the muck will
yield up this nitrogen to plants, it is necessary, in some way, to
ferment or decompose it. But this is a point we will discuss at a future
meeting.”
CHAPTER VII.
TILLAGE IS MANURE.
The Doctor has been invited to deliver a lecture on manure before our
local Farmers’ Club. “The etymological meaning of the word manure,” he
said, “is _hand labor_, from _main_, hand, and _ouvrer_, to work. To
manure the land originally meant to cultivate it, to hoe, to dig, to
plow, to harrow, or stir it in any way so as to expose its particles to
the oxygen of the atmosphere, and thus render its latent elements
assimilable by plants.
“When our first parent,” he continued, “was sent forth from the Garden
of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken, he probably did not
know that the means necessary to kill the thorns and thistles enhanced
the productiveness of the soil, yet such was undoubtedly the case.
“The farmer for centuries was simply a ‘tiller of the ground.’ Guano,
though formed, according to some eminent authorities, long ages before
the creation of man, was not then known. The coprolites lay undisturbed
in countless numbers in the lias, the greensand, and the Suffolk crag.
Charleston phosphates were unknown. Superphosphate, sulphate of ammonia,
nitrate of soda, and kainit were not dreamed of. Nothing was said about
the mineral manure theory, or the exhaustion of the soil. There were no
frauds in artificial fertilizers; no Experiment Stations. The earth,
fresh from the hands of its Creator, needed only to be ‘tickled with a
hoe to laugh with a harvest.’ Nothing was said about the value of the
manure obtained from the consumption of a ton of oil-cake, or
malt-combs, or bran, or clover-hay. For many centuries, the hoe, the
spade, and the rake constituted Adam’s whole stock in trade.
“At length,” continued the Doctor, “a great discovery was made. A Roman
farmer--probably a prominent Granger--stumbled on a mighty truth.
Manuring the land--that is, hoeing and cultivating it--increased its
fertility. This was well known--had been known for ages, and acted upon;
but this Roman farmer, Stercutius, who was a close observer, discovered
that the _droppings of animals_ had the same effect as hoeing. No wonder
these idolatrous people voted him a god. They thought there would be no
more old-fashioned manuring; no more hoeing.
“Of course they were mistaken,” continued the Doctor, “our arable land
will always need plowing and cultivating to kill weeds. Manure, in the
sense in which we now use the term, is only a partial substitute for
tillage, and tillage is only a partial substitute for manure; but it is
well to bear in mind that the words mean the same thing, and the effects
of both are, to a certain extent, identical. Tillage is manure, and
manure is tillage.”
CHAPTER VIII.
SUMMER-FALLOWING.
This is not the place to discuss the merits, or demerits, of fallowing.
But an intelligent Ohio farmer writes me: --“I see that you recommend
fallow plowing, what are your reasons? Granting that the _immediate_
result is an increased crop, is not the land impoverished? Will not the
thorough cultivation of corn, or potatoes, answer as well?” And a
distinguished farmer, of this State, in a recent communication expressed
the same idea--that summer-fallowing would soon impoverish the land. But
if this is the case, the fault is not in the practice of
summer-fallowing, but in growing too many grain crops, and selling them,
instead of consuming them on the farm. Take two fields; summer-fallow
one, and sow it to wheat. Plant the other to corn, and sow wheat after
it in the fall. You get, say 35 bushels of wheat per acre from the
summer-fallow. From the other field you get, say, 30 bushels of shelled
corn per acre, and 10 bushels of wheat afterwards. Now, where a farmer
is in the habit of selling all his wheat, and consuming all his corn on
the farm, it is evident that the practice of summer-fallowing will
impoverish the soil more rapidly than the system of growing corn
followed by wheat--and for the simple reason that more wheat is sold
from the farm. If no more grain is sold in one case than in the other,
the summer-fallowing will not impoverish the soil any more than corn
growing.
My idea of fallowing is this:--The soil and the atmosphere furnish, on
good, well cultivated land, plant-food sufficient, say, for 15 bushels
of wheat per acre, _every year_. It will be sometimes more, and
sometimes less, according to the season and the character of the soil,
but on good, strong limestone land this may be taken as about the
average. To grow wheat every year in crops of 15 bushels per acre, would
impoverish the soil just as much as to summer-fallow and get 30 bushels
of wheat every other year. It is the same thing in either case. But in
summer-fallowing, we clean the land, and the _profits_ from a crop of 30
bushels per acre every other year, are much more than from two crops of
15 bushels every year. You know that Mr. Lawes has a field of about
thirteen acres that he sows with wheat every year. On the plot that
receives no manure of any kind, the crop, for twenty years, averaged 16¼
bushels per acre. It is plowed twice every year, and the wheat is
hand-hoed in the spring to keep it clean. A few years ago, in a field
adjoining this experimental wheat field, and that is of the same
character of land, he made the following experiment. The land, after
wheat, was fallowed, and then sown to wheat; then fallowed the next
year, and again sown to wheat, and the next year it was sown to wheat
after wheat. The following is the result compared with the yield of the
continuously unmanured plot in the experimental field that is sown to
wheat every year:
1. Year--No. 1--Fallow No crop.
No. 2--Wheat after wheat 15 bushels 3½ pecks per acre.
2. Year--No. 1--Wheat after fallow 37 ” -- ” ”
No. 2--Wheat after wheat 13 ” 3¼ ” ”
3. Year--No. 1--Fallow after wheat No crop.
No. 2--Wheat after wheat 15 bushels 3¼ pecks per acre.
4. Year--No. 1--Wheat after fallow 42 ” -- ” ”
No. 2--Wheat after wheat 21 ” 0¼ ” ”
5. Year--No. 1--Wheat after wheat 17 ” 1¼ ” ”
No. 2--Wheat after wheat 17 ” -- ” ”
Taking the first four years, we have a total yield from the plot sown
every year of 66 bushels 2¼ pecks, and from the two crops alternately
fallowed, a total yield of 79 bushels. The next year, when wheat was
sown after wheat on the land previously fallowed, the yield was almost
identical with the yield from the plot that has grown wheat after wheat
for so many years.
So far, these results do not indicate any exhaustion from the practice
of fallowing. On the other hand, they tend to show that we can get
_more_ wheat by sowing it every other year, than by cropping it every
year in succession. The reason for this may be found in the fact that in
a fallow the land is more frequently exposed to the atmosphere by
repeated plowings and harrowings; and it should be borne in mind that
the effect of stirring the land is not necessarily in proportion to the
total amount of stirring, but is according to the number of times that
fresh particles of soil are exposed to the atmosphere. Two plowings and
two harrowings in one week, will not do as much good as two plowings and
two harrowings, at different times in the course of three or four
months. It is for this reason that I object, theoretically, to sowing
wheat after barley. We often plow the barley stubble twice, and spend
considerable labor in getting the land into good condition; but it is
generally all done in the course of ten days or two weeks. We do not get
any adequate benefit for this labor. We can kill weeds readily at this
season, (August), but the stirring of the soil does not develope the
latent plant-food to the extent it would if the work was not necessarily
done in such a limited period. I say _theoretically_, for in point of
fact I _do_ sow wheat after barley. I do so because it is very
convenient, and because it is more immediately profitable. I am
satisfied, however, that _in the end_ it would be more profitable to
seed down the barley with clover.
We _must_ raise larger crops; and to do this we must raise them less
frequently. This is the key-note of the coming improved system of
American agriculture, in all sections where good land is worth less than
one hundred dollars per acre. In the neighborhood of large cities, and
wherever land commands a high price, we must keep our farms in a high
state of fertility by the purchase of manures or cattle foods. Those of
us in the interior, where we can not buy manure, must raise fewer grain
crops, and more clover. We must aim to raise 40 bushels of wheat, 50
bushels of barley, 80 bushels of oats, and 100 bushels of shelled corn,
and 5 bushels of clover-seed per acre. That this can be done on good,
well-drained land, from the unaided resources of the farm, I have no
doubt. It may give us no more grain to sell than at present, but it will
enable us to produce much more mutton, wool, beef, cheese, butter, and
pork, than at present.
“But, then, will there be a demand for the meat, wool, etc.?” The
present indications are highly favorable. But we must aim to raise
_good_ meat. The low-priced beef and mutton sold in our markets are as
unprofitable to the consumer as they are to the producer. We must feed
higher, and to do this to advantage we must have improved stock. There
is no profit in farming without good tillage, larger crops, improved
stock, and higher feeding. The details will be modified by
circumstances, but the principles are the same wherever agri-_culture_
is practised.
CHAPTER IX.
HOW TO RESTORE A WORN-OUT FARM.
I have never yet seen a “worn-out” or “exhausted farm.” I know many
farms that are “run down.” I bought just such a farm a dozen or more
years ago, and I have been trying hard, ever since, to bring it up to a
profitable standard of productiveness--and am still trying, and expect
to have to keep on trying so long as I keep on farming. The truth is,
there never was a farm so rich, that the farmer did not wish it was
richer.
I have succeeded in making the larger part of my farm much more
productive than it ever was before, since it was cleared from the
original forest. But it is far from being as rich as I want it. The
truth is, God sent us into this world to work, and He has given us
plenty to do, if we will only do it. At any rate, this is true of
farming. He has not given us land ready to our hand. The man who first
cleared up my farm, had no easy task. He fairly earned all the good
crops he ever got from it. I have never begrudged him one particle of
the “natural manure” he took out of the land, in the form of wheat,
corn, oats, and hay. On the dry, sandy knolls, he probably got out a
good portion of this natural manure, but on the wetter and heavier
portions of the farm, he probably did not get out one-hundredth part of
the natural manure which the land contained.
Now, when such a farm came into my possession, what was I to do with it?
“Tell us what you did,” said the Doctor, “and then, perhaps, we can tell
you what you ought to have done, and what you ought to have left
undone.”
“I made many mistakes.”
“Amen,” said the Deacon; “I am glad to hear you acknowledge it.”
“Well,” said the Doctor, “it is better to make mistakes in trying to do
something, than to hug our self-esteem, and fold our hands in indolence.
It has been said that critics are men who have failed in their
undertakings. But I rather think the most disagreeable, and
self-satisfied critics, are men who have never done anything, or tried
to do anything, themselves.”
The Deacon, who, though something of an old fogy, is a good deal of a
man, and possessed of good common sense, and much experience, took these
remarks kindly. “Well,” said he to me, “I must say that your farm has
certainly improved, but you did things so differently from what we
expected, that we could not see what you were driving at.”
“I can tell you what I have been aiming at all along. 1st. To drain the
wet portions of the arable land. 2d. To kill weeds, and make the soil
mellow and clean. 3d. To make more manure.”
“You have also bought some bone-dust, superphosphate, and other
artificial manures.”
“True; and if I had had more money I would have bought more manure. It
would have paid well. I could have made my land as rich as it is now in
half the time.”
I had to depend principally on the natural resources of the land. I got
out of the soil all I could, and kept as much of it as possible on the
farm. One of the mistakes I made was, in breaking up too much land, and
putting in too much wheat, barley, oats, peas, and corn. It would have
been better for my pocket, though possibly not so good for the farm, if
I had left more of the land in grass, and also, if I had summer-fallowed
more, and sown less barley and oats, and planted less corn.
“I do not see how plowing up the grass land,” said the Deacon, “could
possibly be any better for the farm. You agricultural writers are always
telling us that we plow too much land, and do not raise grass and clover
enough.”
“What I meant by saying that it would have been better for my pocket,
though possibly not so good for the farm, if I had not plowed so much
land, may need explanation. The land had been only half cultivated, and
was very foul. The grass and clover fields did not give more than half a
crop of hay, and the hay was poor in quality, and much of it half
thistles, and other weeds. I plowed this land, planted it to corn, and
cultivated it thoroughly. But the labor of keeping the corn clean was
costly, and absorbed a very large slice of the profits. _But_ the corn
yielded a far larger produce per acre than I should have got had the
land lain in grass. And as all this produce was consumed on the farm, we
made more manure than if we had plowed less land.”
I have great faith in the benefits of thorough tillage--or, in other
words, of breaking up, pulverizing, and exposing the soil to the
decomposing action of the atmosphere. I look upon a good, strong soil
as a kind of storehouse of plant-food. But it is not an easy matter to
render this plant-food soluble. If it were any less soluble than it is,
it would have all leached out of the land centuries ago. Turning over,
and fining a manure-heap, if other conditions are favorable, cause rapid
fermentation with the formation of carbonate of ammonia, and other
soluble salts. Many of our soils, to the depth of eight or ten inches,
contain enough nitrogenous matter in an acre to produce two or three
thousand pounds of ammonia. By stirring the soil, and exposing it to the
atmosphere, a small portion of this nitrogen becomes annually available,
and is taken up by the growing crops. And it is so with the other
elements of plant-food. Stirring the soil, then, is the basis of
agriculture. It has been said that we must return to the soil as much
plant-food as we take from it. If this were true, nothing could be sold
from the farm. What we should aim to do, is to develop as much as
possible of the plant-food that lies latent in the soil, and not to sell
in the form of crops, cheese, wool, or animals, any more of this
plant-food than we annually develop from the soil. In this way the
“condition” of the soil would remain the same. If we sell _less_ than we
develop, the condition of the soil will improve.
By “condition,” I mean the amount of _available_ plant-food in the soil.
Nearly all our farms are poorer in plant-food to-day than when first
cleared of the original forest, or than they were ten, fifteen, or
twenty years later. In other words, the plants and animals that have
been sold from the farm, have carried off a considerable amount of
plant-food. We have taken far more nitrogen, phosphoric acid, potash,
etc., out of the soil, than we have returned to it in the shape of
manure. Consequently, the soil must contain less and less of plant-food
every year. And yet, while this is a self-evident fact, it is,
nevertheless, true that many of these self-same farms are more
productive now than when first cleared, or at any rate more productive
than they were twenty-five or thirty years ago.
Sometime ago, the Deacon and I visited the farm of Mr. Dewey, of Monroe
Co., N.Y. He is a good farmer. He does not practice “high farming” in
the sense in which I use that term. His is a good example of what I term
slow farming. He raises large crops, but comparatively few of them. On
his farm of 300 acres, he raises 40 acres of wheat, 17 acres of Indian
corn, and 23 acres of oats, barley, potatoes, roots, etc. In other
words, he has 80 acres in crops, and 220 acres in grass--not permanent
grass. He lets it lie in grass five, six, seven, or eight years, as he
deems best, and then breaks it up, and plants it to corn. The land he
intends to plant to corn next year, has been in grass for seven years.
He will put pretty much all his manure on this land. After corn, it will
be sown to oats, or barley; then sown to wheat, and seeded down again.
It will then lie in grass three, four, five, six, or seven years, until
he needs it again for corn, etc. This is “slow farming,” but it is also
good farming--that is to say, it gives large yields per acre, and a good
return for the labor expended.
The soil of this farm is richer to-day in _available_ plant-food than
when first cleared. It produces larger crops per acre.
Mr. D. called our attention to a fact that establishes this point. An
old fence that had occupied the ground for many years was removed some
years since, and the two fields thrown into one. Every time this field
is in crops, it is easy to see where the old fence was, by the short
straw and poor growth on this strip, as compared with the land on each
side which had been cultivated for years.
This is precisely the result that I should have expected. If Mr. D. was
a poor farmer--if he cropped his land frequently, did not more than
half-cultivate it, sold everything he raised, and drew back no manure--I
think the old fence-strip would have given the best crops.
The strip of land on which the old fence stood in Mr. Dewey’s field,
contained _more_ plant-food than the soil on either side of it. But it
was not available. It was not developed. It was latent, inert,
insoluble, crude, and undecomposed. It was so much dead capital. The
land on either side which had been cultivated for years, produced better
crops. Why? Simply because the stirring of the soil had developed _more_
plant-food than had been removed by the crops. If the stirring of the
soil developed 100 lbs. of plant-food a year, and only 75 lbs. were
carried off in the crops--25 lbs. being left on the land in the form of
roots, stubble, etc.--the land, at the expiration of 40 years, would
contain, provided none of it was lost, 1,000 lbs. more _available_
plant-food than the uncultivated strip. On the other hand, the latter
would contain 3,000 lbs. more actual plant-food per acre than the land
which had been cultivated--but it is in an unavailable condition. It is
dead capital.
I do not know that I make myself understood, though I would like to do
so, because I am sure there is no point in scientific farming of greater
importance. Mr. Geddes calls grass the “pivotal crop” of American
agriculture. He deserves our thanks for the word and the idea connected
with it. But I am inclined to think the _pivot_ on which our agriculture
stands and rotates, lies deeper than this. The grass crop creates
nothing--developes nothing. The untilled and unmanured grass lands of
Herkimer County, in this State, are no richer to-day than they were 50
years ago. The pastures of Cheshire, England, except those that have
been top-dressed with bones, or other manures, are no more productive
than they were centuries back. Grass alone will not make rich land. It
is a good “savings bank.” It gathers up and saves plant-food from
running to waste. It pays a good interest, and is a capital institution.
But the real source of fertility must be looked for _in the stores of
plant-food lying dormant in the soil_. Tillage, underdraining, and
thorough cultivation, are the means by which we develop and render this
plant-food available. Grass, clover, peas, or any other crop consumed on
the farm, merely affords us the means of saving this plant-food and
making it pay a good interest.
CHAPTER X.
HOW TO MAKE MANURE.
If we have the necessary materials, it is not a difficult matter to make
manure; in fact, the manure will make itself. We sometimes need to
hasten the process, and to see that none of the fertilizing matter runs
to waste. This is about all that we can do. We cannot create an atom of
plant-food. It is ready formed to our hands; but we must know where to
look for it, and how to get it in the easiest, cheapest, and best way,
and how to save and use it. The science of manure-making is a profound
study. It is intimately connected with nearly every branch of
agriculture.
If weeds grow and decay on the land, they make manure. If we grow a crop
of buckwheat, or spurry, or mustard, or rape, or clover, and mow it, and
let it lie on the land, it makes manure; or if we plow it under, it
forms manure; or if, after it is mown, we rake up the green crop, and
put it into a heap, it will ferment, heat will be produced by the slow
combustion of a portion of the carbonaceous and nitrogenous matter, and
the result will be a mass of material, which we should all recognize as
“manure.” If, instead of putting the crop into a heap and letting it
ferment, we feed it to animals, the digestible carbonaceous and
nitrogenous matter will be consumed to produce animal heat and to
sustain the vital functions, and the refuse, or the solid and liquid
droppings of the animals, will be manure.
If the crop rots on the ground, nothing is added to it. If it ferments,
and gives out heat, in a heap, nothing is added to it. If it is passed
through an animal, and produces heat, nothing is added to it.
I have heard people say a farmer could not make manure unless he kept
animals. We might with as much truth say a farmer cannot make ashes
unless he keeps stoves; and it would be just as sensible to take a lot
of stoves into the woods to make ashes, as it is to keep a lot of
animals merely to make manure. You can make the ashes by throwing the
wood into a pile, and burning it; and you can make the manure by
throwing the material out of which the manure is to be made into a pile,
and letting it ferment. On a farm where neither food nor manure of any
kind is purchased, the only way to make manure is to _get it out of the
land_.
“From the land and from the atmosphere,” remarked the Doctor. “Plants
get a large portion of the material of which they are composed from the
atmosphere.”
“Yes,” I replied, “but it is principally carbonaceous matter, which is
of little or no value as manure. A small amount of ammonia and nitric
acid are also brought to the soil by rains and dews, and a
freshly-stirred soil may also sometimes absorb more or less ammonia from
the atmosphere; but while this is true, so far as making manure is
concerned, we must look to the plant-food existing in the soil itself.
“Take such a farm as Mr. Dewey’s, that we have already referred to. No
manure or food has been purchased; or at any rate, not one-tenth as much
as has been sold, and yet the farm is more productive to-day than when
it was first cleared of the forest. He has developed the manure from the
stores of latent plant-food previously existing in the soil and this is
the way farmers generally make manure.”
CHAPTER XI.
THE VALUE OF MANURE DEPENDS ON THE FOOD--NOT ON THE ANIMAL.
“If,” said I, “you should put a ton of cut straw in a heap, wet it, and
let it rot down into manure; and should place in another heap a ton of
cut corn-fodder, and in another heap a ton of cut clover-hay, wet them,
and let them also rot down into manure; and in another heap a ton of
pulped-turnips, and in another heap a ton of corn-meal, and in another
heap a ton of bran, and in another a ton of malt-sprouts, and let them
be mixed with water, and so treated that they will ferment without loss
of ammonia or other valuable plant-food, I think no one will say that
all these different heaps of manure will have the same value. And if
not, why not?”
“Because,” said Charley, “the ton of straw does not contain as much
valuable plant-food as the ton of corn-fodder, nor the ton of
corn-fodder as much as the ton of clover-hay.”
“Now then,” said I, “instead of putting a ton of straw in one heap to
rot, and a ton of corn-fodder in another heap, and a ton of clover in
another heap, we feed the ton of straw to a cow, and the ton of
corn-fodder to another cow, and the ton of clover to another cow, and
save _all_ the solid and liquid excrements, will the manure made from
the ton of straw be worth as much as the manure made from the ton of
corn-fodder or clover-hay?”
“No,” said Charley. --“Certainly not,” said the Doctor. --“I am not so
sure about it,” said the Deacon; “I think you will get more manure from
the corn-fodder than from the straw or clover-hay.”
“We are not talking about bulk,” said the Doctor, “but value.” “Suppose,
Deacon,” said he, “you were to shut up a lot of your Brahma hens, and
feed them a ton of corn-meal, and should also feed a ton of corn-meal
made into slops to a lot of pigs, and should save _all_ the liquid and
solid excrements from the pigs, and all the manure from the hens, which
would be worth the most?” --“The hen-manure, of course,” said the
Deacon, who has great faith in this kind of “guano,” as he calls it.
“And yet,” said the Doctor, “you would probably not get more than half a
ton of manure from the hens, while the liquid and solid excrements from
the pigs, if the corn-meal was made into a thin slop, would weigh two or
three tons.”
“More, too,” said the Deacon, “the way you feed your store pigs.”
“Very well; and yet you say that the half ton of hen-manure made from a
ton of corn is worth more than the two or three tons of pig-manure made
from a ton of corn. You do not seem to think, after all, that mere bulk
or weight adds anything to the value of the manure. Why then should you
say that the manure from a ton of corn-fodder is worth more than from a
ton of straw, because it is more bulky?”
“You, yourself,” said the Deacon, “also say the manure from the ton of
corn-fodder is worth more than from the ton of straw.” --“True,” said I
“but _not_ because it is more bulky. It is worth more because the ton of
corn-fodder contains a greater quantity of valuable plant-food than the
ton of straw. The clover is still richer in this valuable plant-food,
and the manure is much more valuable; in fact, the manure from the ton
of clover is worth as much as the manure from the ton of straw and the
ton of corn-fodder together.”
“I would like to see you prove that,” said the Deacon, “for if it is
true, I will sell no more clover-hay. I can’t get as much for clover-hay
in the market as I can for rye-straw.”
“I will not attempt to _prove_ it at present,” said the Doctor; “but the
evidence is so strong and so conclusive that no rational man, who will
study the subject, can fail to be thoroughly convinced of its truth.”
“The value of manure,” said I, “does not depend on the quantity of water
which it contains, or on the quantity of sand, or silica, or on the
amount of woody fibre or carbonaceous matter. These things add little or
nothing to its fertilizing value, except in rare cases; and the
sulphuric acid and lime are worth no more than the same quantity of
sulphate of lime or gypsum, and the chlorine and soda are probably worth
no more than so much common salt. The real chemical value of the manure,
other things being equal, is in proportion to the nitrogen, phosphoric
acid, and potash, that the manure contains.
“And the quantity of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash found in the
manure is determined, other things being equal, by the quantity of the
nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash contained in the food consumed by
the animals making the manure.”
CHAPTER XII.
FOODS WHICH MAKE RICH MANURE.
The amount of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, contained in
different foods, has been accurately determined by many able and
reliable chemists.
The following table was prepared by Dr. J. B. Lawes, of Rothamsted,
England, and was first published in this country in the “Genesee
Farmer,” for May, 1860. Since then, it has been repeatedly published in
nearly all the leading agricultural journals of the world, and has given
rise to much discussion. The following is the table, with some recent
additions:
TD: Total dry matter.
TM: Total mineral matter (ash).
Ph: Phosphoric acid reckoned as phosphate of lime.
P: Potash.
N: Nitrogen.
V: Value of manure in dollars and cents from 1 ton (2,000 lbs.)
of food.
-----------------------+----------------------------------+-------
| Per Cent. |
+------+------+------+------+------+
| TD | TM | Ph | P | N | V
-----------------------+------+------+------+------+------+-------
1. Linseed cake | 88.0 | 7.00 | 4.92 | 1.65 | 4.75 | 19.72
2. Cotton-seed cake* | 89.0 | 8.00 | 7.00 | 3.12 | 6.50 | 27.86
3. Rape-cake | 89.0 | 8.00 | 5.75 | 1.76 | 5.00 | 21.01
4. Linseed | 90.0 | 4.00 | 3.38 | 1.37 | 3.80 | 15.65
5. Beans | 84.0 | 3.00 | 2.20 | 1.27 | 4.00 | 15.75
6. Peas | 84.5 | 2.40 | 1.84 | 0.96 | 3.40 | 13.38
7. Tares | 84.0 | 2.00 | 1.63 | 0.66 | 4.20 | 16.75
8. Lentils | 88.0 | 3.00 | 1.89 | 0.96 | 4.30 | 16.51
9. Malt-dust | 94.0 | 8.50 | 5.23 | 2.12 | 4.20 | 18.21
10. Locust beans | 85.0 | 1.75 | .... | .... | 1.25 | 4.81
11. Indian-meal | 88.0 | 1.30 | 1.13 | 0.35 | 1.80 | 6.65
12. Wheat | 85.0 | 1.70 | 1.87 | 0.50 | 1.80 | 7.08
13. Barley | 84.0 | 2.20 | 1.35 | 0.55 | 1.65 | 6.32
14. Malt | 95.0 | 2.60 | 1.60 | 0.65 | 1.70 | 6.65
15. Oats | 86.0 | 2.85 | 1.17 | 0.50 | 2.00 | 7.70
16. Fine pollard† | 86.0 | 5.60 | 6.44 | 1.46 | 2.00 | 13.53
17. Coarse pollard‡ | 86.0 | 6.20 | 7.52 | 1.49 | 2.58 | 14.36
18. Wheat-bran | 86.0 | 6.60 | 7.95 | 1.45 | 2.55 | 14.59
19. Clover-hay | 84.0 | 7.50 | 1.25 | 1.30 | 2.50 | 9.64
20. Meadow-hay | 84.0 | 6.00 | 0.88 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 6.43
21. Bean-straw | 82.5 | 5.55 | 0.90 | 1.11 | 0.90 | 3.87
22. Pea-straw | 82.0 | 5.95 | 0.85 | 0.89 | .... | 3.74
23. Wheat-straw | 84.0 | 5.00 | 0.55 | 0.65 | 0.60 | 2.68
24. Barley-straw | 85.0 | 4.50 | 0.37 | 0.63 | 0.50 | 2.25
25. Oat-straw | 83.0 | 5.50 | 0.48 | 0.93 | 0.60 | 2.90
26. Mangel-wurzel | 12.5 | 1.00 | 0.09 | 0.25 | 0.25 | 1.07
27. Swedish turnips | 11.0 | 0.68 | 0.13 | 0.18 | 0.22 | 0.91
28. Common turnips | 8.0 | 0.68 | 0.11 | 0.29 | 0.18 | 0.86
29. Potatoes | 24.0 | 1.00 | 0.32 | 0.43 | 0.35 | 1.50
30. Carrots | 13.5 | 0.70 | 0.13 | 0.23 | 0.20 | 0.80
31. Parsnips | 15.0 | 1.00 | 0.42 | 0.36 | 0.22 | 1.14
-----------------------+------+------+------+------+------+-------
* The manure from a ton of undecorticated cotton-seed cake is worth
$15.74; that from a ton of cotton-seed, after being ground and sifted,
is worth $13.25. The grinding and sifting in Mr. Lawes’ experiments,
removed about 8 per cent of husk and cotton. Cotton-seed, so treated,
proved to be a very rich and economical food.
† Middlings, Canielle.
‡ Shipstuff.
Of all vegetable substances used for food, it will be seen that
decorticated cotton-seed cake is the richest in nitrogen, phosphoric
acid, and potash, and consequently makes the richest and most valuable
manure. According to Mr. Lawes’ estimate, the manure from a ton of
decorticated cotton-seed cake is worth $27.86 in gold.
Rape-cake comes next. Twenty-five to thirty years ago, rape-cake, ground
as fine as corn-meal, was used quite extensively on many of the
light-land farms of England as a manure for turnips, and not
unfrequently as a manure for wheat. Mr. Lawes used it for many years in
his experiments on turnips and on wheat.
Of late years, however, it has been fed to sheep and cattle. In other
words, it has been used, not as formerly, for manure alone, but for food
first, and manure afterwards. The oil and other carbonaceous matter
which the cake contains is of little value for manure, while it is of
great value as food. The animals take out this carbonaceous matter, and
leave nearly all the nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash in the
manure. Farmers who had found it profitable to use on wheat and turnips
for manure alone, found it still more profitable to use it first for
food, and then for manure afterwards. Mr. Lawes, it will be seen,
estimates the manure produced from the consumption of a ton of rape-cake
at $21.01.
Linseed-oil cake comes next. Pure linseed-cake is exceedingly valuable,
both for food and manure. It is a favorite food with all cattle and
sheep breeders and feeders. It has a wonderful effect in improving the
appearance of cattle and sheep. An English farmer thinks he cannot get
along without “cake” for his calves, lambs, cattle, and sheep. In this
country, it is not so extensively used, except by the breeders of
improved stock. It is so popular in England that the price is fully up
to its intrinsic value, and not unfrequently other foods, in proportion
to the nutritive and manurial value, can be bought cheaper. This fact
shows the value of a good reputation. Linseed-cake, however, is often
adulterated, and farmers need to be cautious who they deal with. When
pure, it will be seen that the manure made by the consumption of a ton
of linseed-cake is worth $19.72.
Malt-dust stands next on the list. This article is known by different
names. In England, it is often called “malt-combs;” here it is known as
“malt-_sprouts_,” or “malt-_roots_.” In making barley into malt, the
barley is soaked in water, and afterwards kept in a warm room until it
germinates, and throws out sprouts and roots. It is then dried, and
before the malt is used, these dried sprouts and roots are sifted out,
and are sold for cattle-food. They weigh from 22 to 25 lbs. per bushel
of 40 quarts. They are frequently mixed at the breweries with the
“grains,” and are sold to milkmen at the same price--from 12 to 15 cents
per bushel. Where their value is not known, they can, doubtless, be
sometimes obtained at a mere nominal price. Milkmen, I believe, prefer
the “grains” to the malt-dust. The latter, however, is a good food for
sheep. It has one advantage over brewer’s “grains.” The latter contain
76 per cent of water, while the malt-dust contains only 6 per cent of
water. We can afford, therefore, to transport malt-dust to a greater
distance than the grains. We do not want to carry _water_ many miles.
There is another advantage: brewer’s grains soon ferment, and become
sour; while the malt-dust, being dry, will keep for any length of time.
It will be seen that Mr. Lawes estimates the value of the manure left
from the consumption of a ton of malt-dust at $18.21.
Tares or vetches, lentils, linseed or flaxseed, beans, wheat, bran,
middlings, fine mill-feed, undecorticated cotton-seed cake, peas, and
cotton-seed, stand next on the list. The value of these for manure
ranging from $13.25 to $16.75 per ton.
Then comes clover-hay. Mr. Lawes estimates the value of the manure from
the consumption of a ton of clover-hay at $9.64. This is from early cut
clover-hay.
When clover is allowed to grow until it is nearly out of flower, the hay
would not contain so much nitrogen, and would not be worth quite so much
per ton for manure. When mixed with timothy or other grasses, or with
weeds, it would not be so valuable. The above estimate is for the
average quality of good pure English clover-hay. Our best farmers raise
clover equally as good; but I have seen much clover-hay that certainly
would not come up to this standard. Still, even our common clover-hay
makes rich manure. In Wolff’s Table, given in the appendix, it will be
seen that clover-hay contains only 1.97 per cent of nitrogen and 5.7 per
cent of ash. Mr. Lawes’ clover contains more nitrogen and ash. This
means richer land and a less mature condition of the crop.
The cereal grains, wheat, barley, oats, and Indian corn, stand next on
the list, being worth from $6.32 to $7.70 per ton for manure.
“Meadow-hay,” which in the table is estimated as worth $6.43 per ton for
manure, is the hay from permanent meadows. It is a quite different
article from the “English Meadow-hay” of New England. It is, in fact,
the perfection of hay. The meadows are frequently top-dressed with
composted manure or artificial fertilizers, and the hay is composed of a
number of the best grasses, cut early and carefully cured. It will be
noticed, however, that even this choice meadow-hay is not as valuable
for manure as clover-hay.
English bean-straw is estimated as worth $3.87 per ton for manure. The
English “horse bean,” which is the kind here alluded to, has a very
stiff, coarse long straw, and looks as though it was much inferior as
fodder, to the straw of our ordinary white beans. See Wolff’s table in
the appendix.
Pea-straw is estimated at $3.74 per ton. When the peas are not allowed
to grow until dead ripe, and when the straw is carefully cured, it makes
capital food for sheep. Taking the grain and straw together, it will be
seen that peas are an unusually valuable crop to grow for the purpose of
making rich manure.
The straw of oats, wheat, and barley, is worth from $2.25 to $2.90 per
ton. Barley straw being the poorest for manure, and oat straw the
richest.
Potatoes are worth $1.50 per ton, or nearly 5 cents a bushel for manure.
The manurial value of roots varies from 80 cents a ton for carrots, to
$1.07 for mangel-wurzel, and $1.14 for parsnips.
I am very anxious that there should be no misapprehension as to the
meaning of these figures. I am sure they are well worth the careful
study of every intelligent farmer. Mr. Lawes has been engaged in making
experiments for over thirty years. There is no man more competent to
speak with authority on such a subject. The figures showing the money
value of the manure made from the different foods, are based on the
amount of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, which they contain. Mr.
Lawes has been buying and using artificial manures for many years, and
is quite competent to form a correct conclusion as to the cheapest
sources of obtaining nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash. He has
certainly not overestimated their _cost_. They can not be bought at
lower rates, either in England or America. But of course it does not
follow from this that these manures are worth to the farmer the price
charged for them; that is a matter depending on many conditions. All
that can be said is, that if you are going to buy commercial manures,
you will have to pay at least as much for the nitrogen, phosphoric acid,
and potash, as the price fixed upon by Mr. Lawes. And you should
recollect that there are other ingredients in the manure obtained from
the food of animals, which are not estimated as of any value in the
table. For instance, there is a large amount of carbonaceous matter in
the manure of animals, which, for some crops, is not without value, but
which is not here taken into account.
Viewed from a farmer’s stand-point, the table of money values must be
taken only in a comparative sense. It is not claimed that the manure
from a ton of wheat-straw is worth $2.68. This may, or may not, be the
case. But _if_ the manure from a ton of wheat-straw is worth $2.08,
_then_ the manure from a ton of pea-straw is worth $3.74, and the manure
from a ton of corn-meal is worth $6.65, and the manure from a ton of
clover-hay is worth $9.64, and the manure from a ton of wheat-bran is
worth $14.59. _If_ the manure from a ton of corn meal is _not_ worth
$6.65, then the manure from a ton of bran is not worth $14.59. If the
manure from the ton of corn is worth _more_ than $6.65, then the manure
from a ton of bran is worth _more_ than $14.59. There need be no doubt
on this point.
Settle in your own mind what the manure from a ton of any one of the
foods mentioned is worth on your farm, and you can easily calculate what
the manure is worth from all the others. If you say that the manure from
a ton of wheat-straw is worth $1.34, then the manure from a ton of
Indian corn is worth $3.33, and the manure from a ton of bran is worth
$7.30, and the manure from a ton of clover-hay is worth $4.82.
In this section, however, few good farmers are willing to sell straw,
though they can get from $8.00 to $10.00 per ton for it. They think it
must be consumed on the farm, or used for bedding, or their land will
run down. I do not say they are wrong, but I do say, that if a ton of
straw is worth $2.68 for manure alone, then a ton of clover-hay is worth
$9.64 for manure alone. This may be accepted as a general truth, and one
which a farmer can act upon. And so, too, in regard to the value of
corn-meal, bran, and all the other articles given in the table.
There is another point of great importance which should be mentioned in
this connection. The nitrogen in the better class of foods is worth more
for manure than the nitrogen in straw, corn-stalks, and other coarse
fodder. Nearly all the nitrogen in grain, and other rich foods, is
digested by the animals, and is voided in solution in the urine. In
other words, the nitrogen in the manure is in an active and available
condition. On the other hand, only about half the nitrogen in the coarse
fodders and straw is digestible. The other half passes off in a crude
and comparatively unavailable condition, in the solid excrement. In
estimating the value of the manure from a ton of food, these facts
should be remembered.
I have said that if the manure from a ton of straw is worth $2.68, the
manure from a ton of corn is worth $6.65; but I will not reverse the
proposition, and say that if the manure from a ton of corn is worth
$6.65, the manure from a ton of straw is worth $2.68. The manure from
the grain is nearly all in an available condition, while that from the
straw is not. A pound of nitrogen in rich manure is worth more than a
pound of nitrogen in poor manure. This is another reason why we should
try to make rich manure.
CHAPTER XIII.
HORSE MANURE AND FARM-YARD MANURE.
The manure from horses is generally considered richer and better than
that from cows. This is not always the case, though it is probably so as
a rule. There are three principal reasons for this. 1st. The horse is
usually fed more grain and hay than the cow. In other words, the food of
the horse is usually richer in the valuable elements of plant-food than
the ordinary food of the cow. 2d. The milk of the cow abstracts
considerable nitrogen, phosphoric acid, etc., from the food, and to this
extent there is less of these valuable substances in the excrements. 3d.
The excrements of the cow contain much more water than those of the
horse. And consequently a ton of cow-dung, other things being equal,
would not contain as much actual manure as a ton of horse-dung.
Boussingault, who is eminently trustworthy, gives us the following
interesting facts:
A horse consumed in 24 hours, 20 lbs. of hay, 6 lbs. of oats, and 43
lbs. of water, and voided during the same period, 3 lbs. 7 ozs. of
urine, and 38 lbs. 2 ozs. of solid excrements.
The solid excrements contained 23½ lbs. of water, and the urine 2 lbs. 6
ozs. of water.
According to this, a horse, eating 20 lbs. of hay, and 6 lbs. of oats,
per day, voids in a year nearly seven tons of solid excrements, and
1,255 lbs. of urine.
It would seem that there must have been some mistake in collecting the
urine, or what was probably the case, that some of it must have been
absorbed by the dung; for 3½ pints of urine per day is certainly much
less than is usually voided by a horse.
Stockard gives the amount of urine voided by a horse in a year at 3,000
lbs.; a cow, 8,000 lbs.; sheep, 380 lbs.; pig, 1,200 lbs.
Dr. Vœlcker, at the Royal Agricultural College, at Cirencester, England,
made some valuable investigations in regard to the composition of
farm-yard manure, and the changes which take place during fermentation.
The manure was composed of horse, cow, and pig-dung, mixed with the
straw used for bedding in the stalls, pig-pens, sheds, etc.
On the 3d of November, 1854, a sample of what Dr. Vœlcker calls “Fresh
Long Dung,” was taken from the “manure-pit” for analysis. It had lain in
the pit or heap about 14 days.
The following is the result of the analysis:
Fresh Farm-Yard Manure.
Half A Ton, Or 1,000 Lbs.
Water 661.7 lbs.
Organic matter 282.4 ”
Ash 55.9 ”
-------------
1,000.0 lbs.
Nitrogen 6.43 ”
“Before you go any farther,” said the Deacon, “let me understand what
these figures mean? Do you mean that a ton of manure contains only 12¾
lbs. of nitrogen, and 111 lbs. of ash, and that all the rest is
carbonaceous matter and water, of little or no value?” --“That is it
precisely, Deacon,” said I, “and furthermore, a large part of the ash
has very little fertilizing value, as seen from the following:
Detailed Composition of the Ash of Fresh Barn-Yard Manure.
Soluble silica 21.59
Insoluble silicious matter (sand) 10.04
Phosphate of lime 5.35
Oxide of iron, alumina, with phosphate 8.47
Containing phosphoric acid 3.18
Lime 21.31
Magnesia 2.76
Potash 12.04
Soda 1.30
Chloride of sodium 0.54
Sulphuric acid 1.49
Carbonic acid and loss 15.11
------
100.00
Nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, are the most valuable ingredients
in manure. It will be seen that a ton of fresh barn-yard manure, of
probably good average quality, contains:
Nitrogen 12¾ lbs.
Phosphoric acid 6½ ”
Potash 13½ ”
I do not say that these are the only ingredients of any value in a ton
of manure. Nearly all the other ingredients are indispensable to the
growth of plants, and if we should use manures containing nothing but
nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, the time would come when the
crops would fail, from lack of a sufficient quantity of, perhaps,
magnesia, or lime, sulphuric acid, or soluble silica, or iron. But it is
not necessary to make provision for such a contingency. It would be a
very exceptional case. Farmers who depend mainly on barn-yard manure, or
on plowing under green crops for keeping up the fertility of the land,
may safely calculate that the value of the manure is in proportion to
the amount of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, it contains.
We draw out a ton of fresh manure and spread it on the land, therefore,
in order to furnish the growing crops with 12¾ lbs. of nitrogen, 6½ lbs.
of phosphoric acid, and 13½ lbs. of potash. Less than 33 lbs. in all!
We cannot dispense with farm-yard manure. We can seldom buy nitrogen,
phosphoric acid, and potash, as cheaply as we can get them in home-made
manures. But we should clearly understand the fact that we draw out
2,000 lbs. of matter in order to get 33 lbs. of these fertilizing
ingredients. We should _try to make richer manure_. A ton of manure
containing 60 lbs. of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, costs no
more to draw out and spread, than a ton containing only 30 lbs., and it
would be worth nearly or quite double the money.
How to make richer manure we will not discuss at this time. It is a
question of food. But it is worth while to enquire if we can not take
such manure as we have, and reduce its weight and bulk without losing
any of its nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash.
CHAPTER XIV.
FERMENTING MANURE.
Dr. Vœlcker placed 2,838 lbs. of fresh mixed manure in a heap Nov. 3,
1854, and the next spring, April 30, it weighed 2,026 lbs., a shrinkage
in weight of 28.6 per cent. In other words 100 tons of such manure would
be reduced to less than 71½ tons.
The heap was weighed again, August 23d, and contained 1,994 lbs. It was
again weighed Nov. 15, and contained 1,974 lbs.
The following table shows the composition of the heap when first put up,
and also at the three subsequent periods:
Table Showing Composition of the Whole Heap; Fresh Farm-Yard Manure
(No. I.) Exposed--Expressed in Lbs.
----------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------
|When put |April 30,|Aug. 23, |Nov. 15,
|up, Nov. |1855. |1855. |1855.
|3, 1854. | | |
----------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------
Weight of manure in lbs. | 2,838 | 2,026 | 1,994 | 1,974
Amt. of water in the manure | 1,877.9 | 1,336.1 | 1,505.3 | 1,466.5
Amt. of dry matter in the | | | |
manure | 960.1 | 689.9 | 488.7 | 507.5
Consisting of-- | | | |
Soluble organic matter { | 70.38| 86.51| 58.83| 54.04
Soluble mineral matter { | 43.71| 57.88| 39.16| 36.89
Insoluble organic matter { | 731.07| 389.74| 243.22| 214.92
Insoluble mineral matter { | 114.92| 155.77| 147.49| 201.65
| --------| --------| --------| --------
| 960.1 | 689.9 | 488.7 | 507.5
| | | |
Containing nitrogen | 4.22| 6.07| 3.76| 3.65
Equal to ammonia | 5.12| 7.37| 4.56| 4.36
Containing nitrogen | 14.01| 12.07| 9.38| 9.38
Equal to ammonia | 17.02| 14.65| 11.40| 11.39
| --------| --------| --------| --------
Total amount of nitrogen in | | | |
manure | 18.23| 18.14| 13.14| 13.03
Equal to ammonia | 22.14| 22.02| 15.96| 15.75
| | | |
The manure contains ammonia | | | |
in free state | .96| .15| .20| .11
The manure contains ammonia | | | |
in form of salts, easily | | | |
decomposed by quicklime | 2.49| 1.71| .75| .80
Total amount of organic | | | |
matters | 801.45| 476.25| 302.05| 268.96
Total amount of mineral | | | |
matters | 158.15| 213.65| 186.65| 238.54
----------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------
“It will be remarked,” says Dr. Vœlcker, “that in the first experimental
period, the fermentation of the dung, as might have been expected,
proceeded most rapidly, but that, notwithstanding, very little nitrogen
was dissipated in the form of volatile ammonia; and that on the whole,
the loss which the manure sustained was inconsiderable when compared
with the enormous waste to which it was subject in the subsequent warmer
and more rainy seasons of the year. Thus we find at the end of April
very nearly the same amount of nitrogen which is contained in the fresh;
whereas, at the end of August, 27.9 per cent of the total nitrogen, or
nearly one-third of the nitrogen in the manure, has been wasted in one
way or the other.
“It is worthy of observation,” continues Dr. Vœlcker, “that, during a
well-regulated fermentation of dung, the loss in intrinsically valuable
constituents is inconsiderable, and that in such a preparatory process
the _efficacy of the manure becomes greatly enhanced_. For certain
purposes fresh dung can never take the place of well-rotted dung. * *
The farmer will, therefore, always be compelled to submit a portion of
home-made dung to fermentation, and will find satisfaction in knowing
that this process, when well regulated, is not attended with any serious
depreciation of the value of the manure. In the foregoing analyses he
will find the direct proof that as long as heavy showers of rain are
excluded from manure-heaps, or the manure is kept in water-proof pits,
the most valuable fertilizing matters are preserved.”
This experiment of Dr. Vœlcker proves conclusively that manure can be
kept in a rapid state of fermentation for six months during winter, with
little loss of nitrogen or other fertilizing matter.
During fermentation a portion of the insoluble matter of the dung
becomes soluble, and if the manure is then kept in a heap exposed to
rain, there is a great loss of fertilizing matter. This is precisely
what we should expect. We ferment manure to make it more readily
available as plant-food, and when we have attained our object, the
manure should be applied to the land. We keep winter apples in the
cellar until they get ripe. As soon as they are ripe, they should be
eaten, or they will rapidly decay. This is well understood. And it
should be equally well known that manure, after it has been fermenting
in a heap for six months, cannot safely be kept for another six months
exposed to the weather.
The following table shows the composition of 100 lbs. of the farm-yard
manure, at different periods of the year:
Composition of 100 Lbs. of Fresh Farm-Yard Manure (No. I.) Exposed in
Natural State, at Different Periods of the Year.
-------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
|When put|Feb. 14,|Apr. 30,|Aug. 23,|Nov. 15,
|up, Nov.|1855. |1855. |1855. |1855.
|3, 1854.| | | |
-------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
Water | 66.17 | 69.83 | 65.95 | 75.49 | 74.29
Soluble organic matter | 2.48 | 3.86 | 4.27 | 2.95 | 2.74
Soluble inorganic matter | 1.54 | 2.97 | 2.86 | 1.97 | 1.87
Insoluble organic matter | 25.76 | 18.44 | 19.23 | 12.20 | 10.89
Insoluble mineral matter | 4.05 | 4.90 | 7.69 | 7.39 | 10.21
+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
| 100.00 |100.00 |100.00 |100.00 |100.00
Containing nitrogen | .149| .27 | .30 | .19 | .18
Equal to ammonia | .181| .32 | .36 | .23 | .21
Containing nitrogen | .494| .47 | .59 | .47 | .47
Equal to ammonia | .599| .57 | .71 | .62 | .57
Total amount of nitrogen | .643| .74 | .89 | .66 | .65
Equal to ammonia | .780| .89 | 1.07 | .85 | .78
Ammonia in a free state | .034| .049 | .008 | .010 | .006
Ammonia in form of salts | | | | |
easily decomposed | | | | |
by quicklime | .088| .064 | .085 | .038 | .041
Total amt. of organic | 28.24 | 22.30 | 23.50 | 15.15 | 13.63
matter | | | | |
Total amt. of mineral | 5.59 | 7.87 | 10.55 | 9.36 | 12.08
substances | | | | |
-------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
It will be seen that two-thirds of the fresh manure is water. After
fermenting in an exposed heap for six months, it still contains about
the same _percentage_ of water. When kept in the heap until August, the
percentage of water is much greater. Of four tons of such manure, three
tons are water.
Of _Nitrogen_, the most valuable ingredient of the manure, the fresh
dung, contained 0.64 per cent; after fermenting six months, it contained
0.89 per cent. Six months later, it contained 0.65 per cent, or about
the same amount as the fresh manure.
Of mineral matter, or ash, this fresh farm-yard manure contained 5.59
per cent; of which 1.54 was soluble in water, and 4.05 insoluble. After
fermenting in the heap for six months, the manure contained 10.55 per
cent of ash, of which 2.86 was soluble, and 7.69 insoluble. Six months
later, the soluble ash had decreased to 1.97 per cent.
The following table shows the composition of the manure, at different
periods, in the _dry state_. In other words, supposing all the water to
be removed from the manure, its composition would be as follows:
Composition of Fresh Farm-Yard Manure (No. I.) Exposed.
Calculated Dry.
-------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
|When put|Feb. 14,|Apr. 30,|Aug. 23,|Nov. 15,
|up, Nov.|1855. |1855. |1855. |1855.
|3, 1854.| | | |
-------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
Soluble organic matter | 7.33 | 12.79 | 12.54 | 12.04 | 10.65
Soluble inorganic matter | 4.55 | 9.84 | 8.39 | 8.03 | 7.27
Insoluble organic matter | 76.15 | 61.12 | 56.49 | 49.77 | 42.35
Insoluble mineral matter | 11.97 | 16.25 | 22.58 | 30.16 | 39.73
+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
| 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00
| | | | |
Containing nitrogen | .44 | .91 | .88 | .77 | .72
Equal to ammonia | .53 | 1.10 | 1.06 | .93 | .88
Containing nitrogen | 1.46 | 1.55 | 1.75 | 1.92 | 1.85
Equal to ammonia | 1.77 | 1.88 | 2.12 | 2.33 | 2.24
Total amount of nitrogen | 1.90 | 2.46 | 2.63 | 2.69 | 2.57
Equal to ammonia | 2.30 | 2.98 | 3.18 | 3.26 | 3.12
Ammonia in free state | .10 | .062| .023| .041| .023
Ammonia in form of salts | | | | |
easily decomposed by | | | | |
quicklime | .26 | .212| .249| .154| .159
Total amount of organic | | | | |
matter | 83.48 | 73.91 | 69.03 | 61.81 | 53.00
Total amount of mineral | | | | |
substances | 16.52 | 26.09 | 30.97 | 38.19 | 47.00
-------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
“A comparison of these different analyses,” says Dr. Vœlcker, “points
out clearly the changes which fresh farm-yard manure undergoes on
keeping in a heap, exposed to the influence of the weather during a
period of twelve months and twelve days.
“1. It will be perceived that the proportion of organic matter steadily
diminishes from month to month, until the original percentage of organic
matter in the dry manure, amounting to 83.48 per cent, becomes reduced
to 53 per cent.
“2. On the other hand, the total percentage of mineral matter rises as
steadily as that of the organic matter falls.
“3. It will be seen that the loss in organic matter affects the
percentage of insoluble organic matters more than the percentage of
soluble organic substances.
“4. The percentage of soluble organic matters, indeed, increased
considerably during the first experimental period; it rose, namely, from
7.33 per cent to 12.79 per cent. Examined again on the 30th of April,
very nearly the same percentage of soluble organic matter, as on
February the 14th, was found. The August analysis shows but a slight
decrease in the percentage of soluble organic matters, while there is a
decrease of 2 per cent of soluble organic matters when the November
analysis is compared with the February analysis.
“5. The soluble mineral matters in this manure rise or fall in the
different experimental periods in the same order as the soluble organic
matters. Thus, in February, 9.84 per cent of soluble mineral matters
were found, whilst the manure contained only 4.55 per cent, when put up
into a heap in November, 1854. Gradually, however, the proportion of
soluble mineral matters again diminished, and became reduced to 7.27 per
cent, on the examination of the manure in November, 1855.
“6. A similar regularity will be observed in the percentage of nitrogen
contained in the soluble organic matters.
“7. In the insoluble organic matters, the percentage of nitrogen
regularly increased from November, 1854, up to the 23d of August,
notwithstanding the rapid diminution of the percentage of insoluble
organic matter. For the last experimental period, the percentage of
nitrogen in the insoluble matter is nearly the same as on August 23d.
“8. With respect to the total percentage of nitrogen in the fresh
manure, examined at different periods of the year, it will be seen that
the February manure contains about one-half per cent more of nitrogen
than the manure in a perfectly fresh state. On the 30th of April, the
percentage of nitrogen again slightly increased; on August 23d, it
remained stationary, and had sunk but very little when last examined on
the 15th of November, 1855.
“This series of analyses thus shows that fresh farm-yard manure rapidly
becomes more soluble in water, but that this desirable change is
realized at the expense of a large proportion of organic matters. It
likewise proves, in an unmistakable manner, that there is no advantage
in keeping farm-yard manure for too long a period; for, after February,
neither the percentage of soluble organic, nor that of soluble mineral
matter, has become greater, and the percentage of nitrogen in the manure
of April and August is only a very little higher than in February.”
“Before you go any further,” said the Deacon, “answer me this question:
Suppose I take five tons of farm-yard manure, and put it in a heap on
the 3d of November, tell me, 1st, what that heap will contain when first
made; 2d, what the heap will contain April 30th; and, 3d, what the heap
will contain August 23d.”
Here is the table:
Contents of a Heap of Manure at Different Periods, Exposed to
Rain, etc.
-------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+--------
|When |Apr. 30. |Aug. 23. |Nov. 15.
|put up, | | |
|Nov. 3. | | |
-------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+--------
Total weight of manure in heap |10,000 | 7,138 | 7,025 | 6,954
Water in the heap of manure | 6,617 | 4,707 | 5,304 | 5,167
Total organic matter | 2,824 | 1,678 | 1,034 | 947
Total inorganic matter | 559 | 753 | 657 | 840
Total nitrogen in heap | 64.3 | 63.9 | 46.3 | 46.0
Total soluble organic matter | 248 | 305 | 207 | 190
Total insoluble organic matter | 2,576 | 1,373 | 857 | 757
Soluble mineral matter | 154 | 204 | 138 | 130
Insoluble mineral matter | 405 | 549 | 519 | 710
Nitrogen in soluble matter | 14.9 | 21.4 | 13.2 | 12.9
Nitrogen in insoluble matter | 49.4 | 42.5 | 33.1 | 33.1
-------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+--------
The Deacon put on his spectacles and studied the above table carefully
for some time. “That tells the whole story,” said he, “you put five tons
of fresh manure in a heap, it ferments and gets warm, and nearly one ton
of water is driven off by the heat.”
“Yes,” said the Doctor, “you see that over half a ton (1,146 lbs.) of
dry organic matter has been slowly burnt up in the heap; giving out as
much heat as half a ton of coal burnt in a stove. But this is not all.
The manure is cooked, and steamed, and softened by the process. The
organic matter burnt up is of no value. There is little or no loss of
nitrogen. The heap contained 64.3 lbs. of nitrogen when put up, and 63.9
lbs. after fermenting six months. And it is evident that the manure is
in a much more active and available condition than if it had been
applied to the land in the fresh state. There was 14.9 lbs. of nitrogen
in a soluble condition in the fresh manure, and 21.4 lbs. in the
fermented manure. And what is equally important, you will notice that
there is 154 lbs. of soluble ash in the heap of fresh manure, and 204
lbs. in the heap of fermented manure. In other words, 50 lbs. of the
insoluble mineral matter had, by the fermentation of the manure, been
rendered soluble, and consequently immediately available as plant-food.
This is a very important fact.”
The Doctor is right. There is clearly a great advantage in fermenting
manure, provided it is done in such a manner as to prevent loss. We have
not only less manure to draw out and spread, but the plant-food which it
contains, is more soluble and active.
The table we have given shows that there is little or no loss of
valuable constituents, even when manure is fermented in the open air and
exposed to ordinary rain and snows during an English winter. But it also
shows that when the manure has been fermented for six months, and is
then turned and left exposed to the rain of spring and summer, the loss
is very considerable.
The five tons (10,000 lbs.,) of fresh manure placed in a heap on the 3d
of November, are reduced to 7,138 lbs. by the 30th of April. Of this
4,707 lbs. is water. By the 23d of August, the heap is reduced to 7,025
lbs., of which 5,304 lbs. is water. There is nearly 600 lbs. more water
in the heap in August than in April.
Of total nitrogen in the heap, there is 64.3 lbs. in the fresh manure,
63.9 lbs. in April, and only 46.3 lbs. in August. This is a great loss,
and there is no compensating gain.
We have seen that, when five tons of manure is fermented for six months,
in winter, the nitrogen in the soluble organic matter is increased from
14.9 lbs. to 21.4 lbs. This is a decided advantage. But when the manure
is kept for another six months, this soluble nitrogen is decreased from
21.4 lbs. to 13.2 lbs. We lose over 8 lbs. of the most active and
available nitrogen.
And the same remarks will apply to the valuable soluble mineral matter.
In the five tons of fresh manure there is 154 lbs. of soluble mineral
matter. By fermenting the heap six months, we get 204 lbs., but by
keeping the manure six months longer, the soluble mineral matter is
reduced to 138 lbs. We lose 66 lbs. of valuable soluble mineral matter.
By fermenting manure for six months in winter, we greatly improve its
condition; by keeping it six months longer, we lose largely of the very
best and most active parts of the manure.
CHAPTER XV.
KEEPING MANURE UNDER COVER.
Dr. Vœlcker, at the same time he made the experiments alluded to in the
preceding chapter, placed another heap of manure _under cover_, in a
shed. It was the same kind of manure, and was treated precisely as the
other--the only difference being that one heap was exposed to the rain,
and the other not. The following table gives the results of the
weighings of the heap at different times, and also the percentage of
loss:
Manure Fermented Under Cover in Shed.
Table Showing the Actual Weighings, and Percentage of Loss in Weight,
of Experimental Heap (No. II.) Fresh Farm-Yard Manure Under Shed,
at Different Periods of the Year.
|Weight |Loss in |Percentage
| of |original| of Loss.
|Manure |weight |
|in Lbs. |in Lbs. |
------------------------------------+--------+--------+----------
Put up on the 3d of November, 1854 | 3,258 | |
Weighed on the 30th of April, 1855, | | |
or after a lapse of 6 months | 1,613 | 1,645 | 50.4
Weighed on the 23d of August, | | |
1855, or after a lapse of | | |
9 months and 20 days | 1,297 | 1,961 | 60.0
Weighed on the 15th of November, | | |
1855, or after a lapse of | | |
12 months and 12 days | 1,235 | 2,023 | 62.1
------------------------------------+--------+--------+----------
It will be seen that 100 tons of manure, kept in a heap under cover for
six months, would be reduced to 49.6-10 tons. Whereas, when the same
manure was fermented for the same length of time in the open air, the
100 tons was reduced to only 71.4-10 tons. The difference is due
principally to the fact that the heap exposed contained more water,
derived from rain and snow, than the heap kept under cover. This, of
course, is what we should expect. Let us look at the results of Dr.
Vœlcker’s analyses:
Table Showing the Composition of Experimental Heap (No. II.) Fresh
Farmyard Manure Under Shed, in Natural State at Different Periods
of the Year.
-------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
|When put|Feb. 14,|Apr. 30,|Aug. 23,|Nov. 15,
|up, Nov.|1855. |1855. |1855. |1855.
|3, 1854.| | | |
-------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
Water | 66.17 | 67.32 | 56.89 | 43.43 | 41.66
* Soluble organic matter | 2.48 | 2.63 | 4.63 | 4.13 | 5.37
Soluble inorganic matter | 1.54 | 2.12 | 3.38 | 3.05 | 4.43
† Insoluble organic | | | | |
matter | 25.76 | 20.46 | 25.43 | 26.01 | 27.69
Insoluble mineral matter | 4.05 | 7.47 | 9.67 | 23.38 | 20.85
+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
|100.00 |100.00 |100.00 |100.00 |100.00
| | | | |
* Containing nitrogen | .149 | .17 | .27 | .26 | .42
Equal to ammonia | .181 | .20 | .32 | .31 | .51
† Containing nitrogen | .494 | .58 | .92 | 1.01 | 1.09
Equal to ammonia | .599 | .70 | 1.11 | 1.23 | 1.31
Total amount of nitrogen | .643 | .75 | 1.19 | 1.27 | 1.51
Equal to ammonia | .780 | .90 | 1.43 | 1.54 | 1.82
Ammonia in free state | .034 | .022 | .055 | .015 | .019
Ammonia in form of salts | | | | |
easily decomposed | | | | |
by quicklime | .088 | .054 | .101 | .103 | .146
Total amount of organic | | | | |
matter | 28.24 | 23.09 | 30.06 | 30.14 | 33.06
Total amount of mineral | | | | |
substance | 5.59 | 9.59 | 13.05 | 26.43 | 25.28
-------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
Table Showing the Composition of Experimental Heap (No. II.) Fresh
Farmyard Manure Under Shed, Calculated Dry, at Different Periods
of the Year.
-------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
|When put|Feb. 14,|Apr. 30,|Aug. 23,|Nov. 15,
|up, Nov.|1855. |1855. |1855. |1855.
|3, 1854.| | | |
-------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
* Soluble organic matter | 7.33 | 8.04 | 10.74 | 7.30 | 9.20
Soluble inorganic matter | 4.55 | 6.48 | 7.84 | 5.39 | 7.59
† Insoluble organic | | | | |
matter | 76.15 | 62.60 | 58.99 | 45.97 | 47.46
Insoluble mineral matter | 11.97 | 22.88 | 22.43 | 41.34 | 35.75
+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
|100.00 |100.00 |100.00 |100.00 |100.00
| | | | |
* Containing nitrogen | .44 | .53 | .63 | .46 | .72
Equal to ammonia | .53 | .66 | .75 | .56 | .88
† Containing nitrogen | 1.46 | 1.77 | 2.14 | 1.78 | 1.88
Equal to ammonia | 1.77 | 2.14 | 2.59 | 2.16 | 2.26
Total amount of nitrogen | 1.90 | 2.30 | 2.77 | 2.24 | 2.60
Equal to ammonia | 2.30 | 2.80 | 3.35 | 2.72 | 3.08
Ammonia in free state | .10 | .067 | .127 | .026 | .033
Ammonia in form of salts,| | | | |
easily decomposed | | | | |
by quicklime | .26 | .165 | .234 | .182 | .250
Total amount of organic | | | | |
matter | 83.48 | 70.64 | 69.73 | 53.27 | 56.66
Total amount of mineral | | | | |
substance | 16.52 | 29.36 | 30.27 | 46.73 | 43.34
-------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------
The above analyses are of value to those who buy fresh and fermented
manure. They can form some idea of what they are getting. If they buy a
ton of fresh manure in November, they get 12¾ lbs. of nitrogen, and 30¾
lbs. of soluble mineral matter. If they buy a ton of the same manure
that has been kept under cover until February, they get, nitrogen, 15
lbs.; soluble minerals, 42½ lbs. In April, they get, nitrogen, 23¾ lbs.;
soluble minerals, 67½ lbs. In August, they get, nitrogen, 25½ lbs.;
soluble minerals, 61 lbs. In November, when the manure is over one year
old, they get, in a ton, nitrogen, 30¼ lbs.; soluble minerals, 88½ lbs.
When manure has not been exposed, it is clear that a purchaser can
afford to pay considerably more for a ton of rotted manure than for a
ton of fresh manure. But waiving this point for the present, let us see
how the matter stands with the farmer who makes and uses the manure.
What does he gain by keeping and fermenting the manure under cover?
The following table shows the weight and composition of the entire heap
of manure, kept under cover, at different times:
Table Showing Composition of Entire Experimental Heap (No. II.)
Fresh Farm-Yard Manure, Under Shed.
-------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+--------
|When put |April 30,|Aug. 23, |Nov. 15,
|up, Nov. |1855. |1855. |1855.
|3, 1854. | | |
-------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+--------
| lbs. | lbs. | lbs. | lbs.
Weight of manure | 3,258. |1,613. |1,297. |1,235.
+---------+---------+---------+--------
Amount of water in the manure | 2,156. | 917.6 | 563.2 | 514.5
Amount of dry matter | 1,102. | 695.4 | 733.8 | 720.5
* Consisting of soluble | | | |
organic matter | 80.77| 74.68 | 53.56 | 66.28
Soluble mineral matter | 50.14| 54.51 | 39.55 | 54.68
† Insoluble organic matter | 839.17| 410.24 | 337.32 | 341.97
Insoluble mineral matter | 131.92| 155.97 | 303.37 | 257.57
+---------+---------+---------+--------
| 1,102. | 695.4 | 733.8 | 720.5
| | | |
* Containing nitrogen | 4.85| 4.38 | 3.46 | 5.25
Equal to ammonia | 5.88| 5.33 | 4.20 | 6.37
† Containing nitrogen | 16.08| 14.88 | 13.08 | 13.54
Equal to ammonia | 19.59| 17.46 | 15.88 | 16.44
Total amount of nitrogen | | | |
in manure | 20.93| 19.26 | 16.54 | 18.79
Equal to ammonia | 25.40| 22.79 | 20.08 | 22.81
The manure contains ammonia | | | |
in free state | 1.10| .88 | .19 | .23
The manure contains ammonia | | | |
in form of salts, easily | | | |
decomposed by quicklime | 2.86| 1.62 | 1.33 | 1.80
Total amount of organic matter | 919.94| 484.92 | 390.88 | 408.25
Total amount of mineral matter | 182.06| 210.48 | 342.92 | 312.35
-------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+--------
This is the table, as given by Dr. Vœlcker. For the sake of comparison,
we will figure out what the changes would be in a heap of five tons
(10,000 lbs.) of manure, when fermented under cover, precisely in the
same way as we did with the heap fermented in the open air, exposed to
the rain. The following is the table:
Contents of a Heap Of Manure at Different Periods. Fermented Under
Cover.
-------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+--------
|When put |April 30,|Aug. 23, |Nov. 15,
|up, Nov. |1855. |1855. |1855.
|3, 1854. | | |
-------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+--------
| lbs. | lbs. | lbs. | lbs.
Total weight of manure in heap | 10,000 | 4,960 | 4,000 |3,790
Water in the heap of manure | 6,617 | 2,822 | 1,737 |1,579
Total organic matter | 2,824 | 1,490 | 1,205 |1,253
Total inorganic matter | 559 | 646 | 1,057 | 958
Total nitrogen in heap | 64.3| 59 | 50.8| 57.2
Total soluble organic matter | 248 | 230 | 165 | 203.5
Insoluble organic matter | 2,576 | 1,260 | 1,040 |1,049
Soluble mineral matter | 154 | 167 | 122 | 168
Insoluble mineral matter | 405 | 479 | 935 | 790
Nitrogen in soluble matter | 14.9| 13.4| 10.4| 15.9
Nitrogen in insoluble matter | 49.4| 45.6| 40.4| 41.3
Total dry matter in heap | 3,383 | 2,038 | 2,263 |2,211
-------------------------------+---------+---------+------------------
It will be seen that the heap of manure kept under cover contained, on
the 30th of April, _less_ soluble organic matter, _less_ soluble mineral
matter, _less_ soluble nitrogenous matter, and _less_ total nitrogen
than the heap of manure exposed to the weather. This is precisely what I
should have expected. The heap of manure in the shed probably fermented
more rapidly than the heap out of doors, and there was not water enough
in the manure to retain the carbonate of ammonia, or to favor the
production of organic acids. _The heap was too dry._ If it could have
received enough of the liquid from the stables to have kept it
moderately moist, the result would have been very different.
We will postpone further consideration of this point at present, and
look at the results of another of Dr. Vœlcker’s interesting experiments.
Dr. Vœlcker wished to ascertain the effect of three common methods of
managing manure:
1st. Keeping it in a _heap_ in the open air in the barn-yard, or field.
2d. Keeping it in a _heap_ under cover in a shed.
3d. Keeping it _spread out_ over the barn-yard.
“You say these are common methods of managing manure,” remarked the
Deacon, “but I never knew any one in this country take the trouble to
spread manure over the yard.”
“Perhaps not,” I replied, “but you have known a good many farmers who
adopt this very method of keeping their manure. They do not spread
it--but they let it lie spread out over the yards, just wherever it
happens to be.”
Let us see what the effect of this treatment is on the composition and
value of the manure.
We have examined the effect of keeping manure in a heap in the open air,
and also of keeping it in a heap under cover. Now let us see how these
methods compare with the practice of leaving it exposed to the rains,
spread out in the yard.
On the 3rd of November, 1854, Dr. Vœlcker weighed out 1,652 lbs. of
manure similar to that used in the preceding experiments, and spread it
out in the yard. It was weighed April 30, and again August 23, and
November 15.
The following table gives the actual weight of the manure at the
different periods, also the actual amount of the water, organic matter,
ash, nitrogen, etc.:
Table Showing the Weight and Composition of Entire Mass of
Experimental Manure (No. Iii.), Fresh Farm-Yard Manure, Spread
in Open Yard at Different Periods of the Year. In Natural State.
-------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+--------
|When put |April 30,|Aug. 23, |Nov. 15,
|up, Nov. |1855. |1855. |1855.
|3, 1854. | | |
-------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+--------
| lbs. | lbs. | lbs. | lbs.
Weight of manure |1,652. |1,429. |1,012. |950.
+---------+---------+---------+--------
Amount of water in the manure |1,093. |1,143. | 709.3 |622.8
Amount of dry matter | 559. | 285.5 | 302.7 |327.2
* Consisting of soluble | | | |
organic matter | 40.97 | 16.55 | 4.96 | 3.95
Soluble mineral matter | 25.43 | 14.41 | 6.47 | 5.52
† Insoluble organic matter | 425.67 | 163.79 | 106.81 | 94.45
Insoluble mineral matter | 66.93 | 90.75 | 184.46 |223.28
+---------+---------+---------+--------
| 559.00 | 285.50 | 302.70 |327.20
| | | |
* Containing nitrogen | 3.28 | 1.19 | .60 | .32
Equal to ammonia | 3.98 | 1.44 | .73 | .39
† Containing nitrogen | 6.21 | 6.51 | 3.54 | 3.56
Equal to ammonia | 7.54 | 7.90 | 4.29 | 4.25
Total amount of nitrogen in | | | |
manure | 9.19 | 7.70 | 4.14 | 3.88
Equal to ammonia | 11.52 | 9.34 | 5.02 | 4.64
The manure contains ammonia | | | |
in free state | .55 | .14 | .13 | .0055
The manure contains ammonia | | | |
in form of salts, easily | | | |
decomposed by quicklime | 1.45 | .62 | .55 | .28
Total amount of organic matter | 466.64 | 180.34 | 111.77 | 98.40
Total amount of mineral matter | 92.36 | 105.16 | 190.93 |228.80
-------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+--------
“One moment,” said the Deacon. “These tables are a little confusing. The
table you have just given shows the actual weight of the manure in the
heap, and what it contained at different periods.” --“Yes,” said I, “and
the table following shows what 100 lbs. of this manure, spread out in
the yard, contained at the different dates mentioned. It shows how
greatly manure deteriorates by being exposed to rain, spread out on the
surface of the yard. The table merits careful study.”
Table Showing Composition of Experimental Heap (No. III.). Fresh Farm
Yard Manure, Spread in Open Yard, at Different Periods of the Year.
In Natural State.
-------------------------------+---------+---------+--------+---------
|When put |April 30,|Aug. 23,|Nov. 15,
|up, Nov. |1855. |1855. |1855.
|3, 1854. | | |
-------------------------------+---------+---------+--------+---------
Water | 66.17 | 80.02 | 70.09 | 65.56
* Soluble organic matter | 2.48 | 1.16 | .49 | .42
Soluble inorganic matter | 1.54 | 1.01 | .64 | .57
† Insoluble organic matter | 25.76 | 11.46 | 10.56 | 9.94
Insoluble mineral matter | 4.05 | 6.35 | 18.22 | 23.51
+---------+---------+--------+---------
| 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00
| | | |
* Containing nitrogen | .149 | .08 | .06 | .03
Equal to ammonia | .181 | .69 | .07 | .036
† Containing nitrogen | .494 | .45 | .35 | .36
Equal to ammonia | .599 | .54 | .42 | .46
Total amount of nitrogen | .643 | .53 | .41 | .39
Equal to ammonia | .780 | .63 | .49 | .496
Ammonia in free state | .034 | .010 | .012| .0006
Ammonia in form of salts, | | | |
easily decomposed by | | | |
quicklime | .088 | .045 | .051| .030
Total amount of organic matter | 28.24 | 12.62 | 11.05 | 10.36
Total amount of mineral | | | |
substance | 5.59 | 7.36 | 18.86 | 24.08
-------------------------------+---------+---------+--------+---------
The following table shows the composition of the manure, calculated dry:
Table Showing Composition of Experimental Heap (No. III.), Fresh Farm
Yard Manure, Spread in Open Yard, at Different Periods of the Year.
Calculated Dry.
-------------------------------+---------+---------+--------+---------
|When put |April 30,|Aug. 23,|Nov. 15,
|up, Nov. |1855. |1855. |1855.
|3, 1854. | | |
-------------------------------+---------+---------+--------+---------
* Soluble organic matter | 7.33 | 5.80 | 1.64 | 1.21
Soluble inorganic matter | 4.55 | 5.05 | 2.14 | 1.69
† Insoluble organic matter | 76.15 | 57.37 | 35.30 | 28.86
Insoluble mineral matter | 11.97 | 31.78 | 60.92 | 68.24
+---------+---------+--------+---------
| 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00
| | | |
* Containing nitrogen | .44 | .42 | .20 | .10
Equal to ammonia | .53 | .51 | .24 | .12
† Containing nitrogen | 1.46 | 2.28 | 1.17 | 1.09
Equal to ammonia | 1.77 | 2.76 | 1.41 | 1.32
Total amount of nitrogen | 1.90 | 2.70 | 1.37 | 1.19
Equal to ammonia | 2.30 | 3.27 | 1.65 | 1.44
Ammonia in free state | .10 | .05 | .040| .0017
Ammonia in form of salts, | | | |
easily decomposed by | | | |
quicklime | .26 | .225 | .171| .087
Total amount of organic matter | 83.48 | 63.17 | 36.94 | 30.07
Total amount of mineral | | | |
substance | 16.52 | 36.83 | 63.06 | 69.93
-------------------------------+---------+---------+--------+---------
I have made out the following table, showing what would be the changes
in a heap of 5 tons (10,000 lbs.) of manure, spread out in the yard, so
that we can readily see the effect of this method of management as
compared with the other two methods of keeping the manure in compact
heaps, one exposed, the other under cover.
The following is the table:
Contents of the Mass of Manure, Spread Out in Farm-Yard, and Exposed
to Rain, Etc.
------------------------------+-----------+--------+---------+--------
|When |Apr. 30.|Aug. 23. |Nov. 15.
|spread out,| | |
|Nov. 3. | | |
------------------------------+-----------+--------+---------+--------
| lbs. | lbs. | lbs. | lbs.
Total weight of manure | 10,000 | 8,350 | 6,130 | 5,750
Water in the manure | 6,617 | 6,922 | 4,297 | 3,771
Total organic matter | 2,824 | 1,092 | 677 | 595
Total inorganic matter | 559 | 636 | 1,155 | 1,384
Total nitrogen in manure | 64.3 | 45.9 | 25 | 22.4
Total soluble organic matter | 248 | 100 | 30 | 24
Insoluble organic matter | 2,576 | 992 | 647 | 571
Soluble mineral matter | 154 | 87 | 39 | 33
Insoluble mineral matter | 405 | 549 | 1,116 | 1,351
Nitrogen in soluble matter | 14.9 | 6.9 | 3.6 | 1.7
Nitrogen in insoluble matter | 49.4 | 39 | 21.4 | 20.7
------------------------------+-----------+--------+---------+--------
It is not necessary to make many remarks on this table. The facts speak
for themselves. It will be seen that there is considerable loss even by
letting the manure lie spread out until spring; but, serious as this
loss is, it is small compared to the loss sustained by allowing the
manure to lie exposed in the yard during the summer.
In the five tons of fresh manure, we have, November 3, 64.3 lbs. of
nitrogen; April 30, we have 46 lbs.; August 23, only 25 lbs. This is a
great loss of the most valuable constituent of the manure. Of soluble
mineral matter, the next most valuable ingredient, we have in the five
tons of fresh manure, November 3, 154 lbs.; April 30, 87 lbs.; and
August 23, only 39 lbs. Of soluble nitrogen, the most active and
valuable part of the manure, we have, November 3, nearly 15 lbs.; April
30, not quite 7 lbs.; August 23, 3½ lbs.; and November 15, not quite 1¾
lbs.
Dr. Vœlcker made still another experiment. He took 1,613 lbs. of
_well-rotted_ dung (mixed manure from horses, cows, and pigs,) and kept
it in a heap, exposed to the weather, from December 5 to April 30,
August 23, and November 15, weighing it and analyzing it at these
different dates. I think it is not necessary to give the results in
detail. From the 5th of December to the 30th of April, there was _no
loss_ of nitrogen in the heap, and comparatively little loss of soluble
mineral matters; but from April 30 to August 23, there was considerable
loss in both these valuable ingredients, which were washed out of the
heap by rain.
Dr. Vœlcker draws the following conclusions from his experiments:
“Having described at length my experiments with farm-yard manure,” he
says, “it may not be amiss to state briefly the more prominent and
practically interesting points which have been developed in the course
of this investigation. I would, therefore, observe:
“1. Perfectly fresh farm yard manure contains but a small proportion of
free ammonia.
“2. The nitrogen in fresh dung exist
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