168 Report of Farmers' Institutes 



THE INDIRECT PROFITS FROM THE DAIRY 



Professor J. L. Stone 



I see four distinct ways in which dairying may be said to 

 produce indirect benefits. 



1. In the production of manure. I believe that there may be 

 developed systems of farming whereby, with wisely planned 

 rotation of crops, the use of catch crop and green manui'e crop, 

 soil amendments and mineral fertilizers, coupled with judicious 

 cultivation, we may maintain satisfactory crop yields indefinitely. 

 Some farmers may have developed such a system, but their 

 methods and results have not been heralded abroad. When we 

 see farmers producing crops with the use of little or no stable 

 manure we are safe in assuming that they are doing mining 

 farming. They are depleting the stores of available plant food 

 in the soil, and crop yields will sooner or later fall off, as cer- 

 tainly as the mine will eventually become " worked out." 



Dairying results in the production of quantitites of manure, 

 which, if carefully husbanded and wisely utilized, will enable 

 the farmer to produce fine yields of cash crops, as well as of 

 forage crops, to the financial advantage of his enterprise. He 

 will at the same time be maintaining or increasing the available 

 plant food supply. 



2. Utilizing non-salable products. On every farm growing a 

 variety of crops there will always be some that will not be 

 readily salable, or at least will be most profitably disposed of 

 by feeding them on the farm. Clover hay, corn stalks, cabbage 

 waste, straw, cull apples and potatoes, and apple pumice, may be 

 most advantageously disposed of in this way. l^ot only is feed- 

 ing value realized from them, but they are at the same time con- 

 verted into much needed manure. 



3. All-the-year-round employment. Primarily a farm is a 

 place to work. The farmer's earnings correspond to the laborers 

 wages. If he is a skilful farmer, and has a fair amount of capi- 

 tal at his disposal, his income should equal a skilled artisan's 

 wages, but in either case the income will be largely influenced by 

 the completeness of his employment throughout the year. Farm 



