No. 7. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 451 



Now I believe that a man should be full of his subject in ap- 

 pearing before an audience, and a man that is full of his subject gen- 

 erally knows something about it; but on a particular subject like 

 this I would prefer to be full of something else. In order that the 

 matter that I have to present to you may be intelligently presented, 

 contrary to my usual custom, I have written out the matter that I 

 have prepared, in the hope that we may have some considerable dis- 

 cussion upon the points presented. 



Mr. Voorhees read his paper as follows: 



THE COMPOSITION AND USE OF HOME MANURES. 



Br Prof. B. B. Voobhees, New Brunswick, N. J. 



There is probably no other one question so important to the farm- 

 ers of America as the question of the handling and use of farm 

 manure, for notwithstanding certain statements that have been 

 made, and presumably frOm authoritative sources, that the fertility 

 of a soil is dependent more upon the solutions that exist in it, than 

 on its content of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, the bulk of 

 the evidence is still in favor of the fact that the measure of poten- 

 tial fertility of any soil is its content of nitrogen, phosphoric acid 

 and potash, and that the actual fertility depends upon the handling 

 of these constituents, as they exist in soils, and as they may be ap- 

 plied. The successful production of crops depends upon the hand- 

 ling of these constituent elements more than upon any other one 

 thing, particularly in humid districts. It will be interesting, I 

 think, to give some idea of the constituent elements that are re- 

 moved from our soils, and the gradual deterioration in crop-pro- 

 ducing power, the amounts of constituents that are carried away 

 from our farms in our leading crops. In 1903, there was produced 

 in this countrv, in round numbers: 



63,000,000 tons of corn. 



61,000,000 tons of hay. 



19,000,000 tons of wheat. 



11,500,000 tons of oats. 

 822,000 tons of rye. 

 *800,000 tons of cottonseed meal. 

 764,000 tons of flaxseed. 

 356,000 tons of buckwheat. 

 329,500 tons of barley. 



Each ton of these various crops removed more or less of the fer- 

 tility constituents, nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, ranging 

 from 140, 55 and 40 pounds per ton, respectively, for cottonseed meal, 

 to 30, 10 and 4 pounds per ton, respectively, for buckwheat. With- 



'Estlmated. 



