STATE DAIRY ASSCKIATIOX. 571 



prodiuts. We tiilk of the c-:ilf as ln'iii^- ono of the byproducts. I hehcvo 

 it ha.s Ik'cii said. ((Uiiinu- from the Illinois Experiment Station, that the 

 calf M-ouhl probaltly ])ay for the feed dnrins the time the cow is dry; and 

 I)os.siljly the skim milk will pay what it costs to take care of the cow, and 

 that probably should lie considered as part of the i)rofit. 



1 want to speak a little bit alK)nl the value of our manure. I do not 

 expect to so into an elaborate discussion of this sul).iect. It is of much 

 value as plant food, and we should know how liest to use it. It is a fad 

 that many farmers of I)idiana are taking off from their land more than 

 they are puttinu: back. As soon as these programs came out, and I saw 

 my name on them to discuss this subject, I immediately commenced 

 looking up some statistics, so that 1 might present to you some facts con- 

 cerning tliis subject. I turned to the expi'riments carried on l»y the Cor- 

 nell Station of New York— a feeding experiment— to find out how much 

 was digested and how much could be returned to the farm as plant food; 

 and those figures 1 want to prt'sent you this morning as the foundation for 

 my remarks. I want to say, however, that whenever we talk about barn- 

 yard manure. Axe .ill understand there are three elements contained therein 

 —phosphoric acid, i-otash and niti-ogen. The commercial fertilizer takes 

 account of these elements. A great many dairymen in this country are 

 buying commercial fertilizei's. and thro^\•ing away their manures. Dur- 

 ing this experiment it was foiuid that with a variety of concentrated 

 foods fed through these animals, they had not taken up (o exceed one- 

 fourth the value of that material as a plant food. It was worth three- 

 fourths as much as before as plant food, if returned to the farm. I be- 

 lieve the dairy cow takes out more than any other class of animals, and 

 that experiments liave demonstrated this to lie a fact. She must use the 

 nitrogen in tlie iirocess of makinii' milk. 1 sliall onlv consider the nrodui't 

 of the cow. Tliat experiment showed that the majiure from one faiily 

 well-fed cow during 12 months, counting nitrogen at 15 cents a pound 

 (which is as low as it can be bought in a commercial fertilizer in this 

 country) and jiossibly ."> cents a pound for iihosjihoric acid, ami .3 cents a 

 pound for potash (I b(>liev(>. however, the phosphoric acid in this case 

 was counted at 7 cents a pound i llie ])ro(hict of that cow, so far as the 

 value of the mainire was concerned as jilant food, was .$;ili.25 from one 

 cow. Your secretary said to nie this fall at Lafayette that, taking the 

 numiier of cows in this Stale and then taking the i)roduct of those cows 

 and dividing it nii. he fotmd tiic c.ish icceived from the product of each 

 cow as a dairy jiroducl aniounlcd to less than $."'.0. So we have got a 

 gi-ealer jirolit in tlie manure pile than that. 1 will tigni-e this \\\) again, in 

 order to imi>ress np.on you the value of this byprod\ict. In analyzing that 

 product we fonnd that it <'ontained (whatever it was~lli or l.'t tons prob- 

 ably) 170 pounds of nitrogen. "Jt; pounds of phosphoric acid, and Ui7 pounds 

 of potash. I turned to another lot of statistics and 1 fonnd that the phos- 

 phoric ;icid. jiotash .and introgen contained in the in.Miiure from thai one 



