• MANURES. 35 



absorbents, you will have one of the most efficient means of in- 

 direct manuring which you can have, although you bought it 

 ostensibly as food. 



And that brings up a question in connection with manure. I 

 think it one which farmers ought to settle each for themselves, 

 whether they can do better in buying manure directly, or buying 

 it in the shape of food. In some cases, undoubtedly, you can best 

 manure your lands by buying food and passing it through your 

 animals, getting all you can in milk and flesh, and the balance in 

 manure. But hitherto the question of manure in connection with 

 feeding has been almost ignored. It is not so where agriculture 

 is more jidvanced than it is here. In Great Britain, the farmer 

 calculates, with as much care and exactness as he can, the most 

 economical method of procuring manure ; he figures closely, just 

 as the manufacturer of cotton here figures the cost of his product — 

 down to the fraction of a cent on a pound. He wants to know, 

 not only how much fat and flesh it will give as food, but how 

 much real product there is, how much manure he can get from it. 

 If the fish resources we have in this State were properly saved 

 and used here, first as food and then as manure, we might make 

 the whole State of Maine as rich as a garden. 



Mr. Howard. What is the value per hundred after it is pre- 

 pared for food ? 



Secretary Goodale. I have known very little properly prepared. 

 The great bulk of it is barreled up as it comes from the press. A 

 large proportion of what is sold has not half nor quarter the value 

 it ought to have, and I have seen some that was absolutely inert. 

 I bouglit a lot on the Penobscot river some years ago, and took it 

 home and composted it with sods and other matter, and I saw no 

 more effect from it than from the sods alone. But when it is 

 properly dried, I consider it one-half as valuable as Peruvian 

 guano, when used for manure, and more if used for both food and 

 manure. If jou can have the fish dried at once when it comes 

 from the press, so that it will weigh no more than is absolutely 

 necessary, it will be worth forty or fifty dollars a ton. 



Mr. Thing. I have but one word to say, and that is by way of 

 exhortation. Marine manures are good, phosphates are good, 

 ground bone is good ; but I tell you we have got to depend main- 

 ly, in the State of Maine, upon the manure that we make around 

 our barns and houses. Don't forget that. The more manure we 

 can make about our barns, our sinks and our hog-pens, the better 



