412 FAKMERS' INSTITUTES. 



Mr. : How can we produce a sufficiency of barn-yard manure? 



Dr. Miles: What we already have would go farther if it were better cared 

 for and utilized. Its value is not appreciated. Farmers do not understand 

 that as compared with the market prices of commercial fertilizers the manure 

 from feeding a ton of corn is worth 16.00, from a ton of cornstalks $4.00, 

 from feeding the product of an acre of corn $18.00, from forty-five bushels of 

 oats 18.00, from a ton of timothy hay $4.50, and from a ton of clover hay 

 $8.00. If this were appreciated there would be less waste. If your barn- 

 yard manure is insufficient you can afford to buy more stock and more stock 

 feed. 



Mr. Sherman: I like to hear these fancy theories but I can't realize them 

 on my farm. The values given for the manure from feeding crops is greater 

 than the total that I am able to realize from my crops. I sacredly restore to 

 my land all the manure that my farm produces; but I find this insufficient 

 and have to supplement by plowing under clover. 



Dr. Miles : I would remind Mr. Sherman that I only gave the valuations 

 that I did, on the basis of present market prices for commercial fertilizers. 

 If they are worth the prices paid for them, then the different crops named 

 are worth the sums given, for the manure that they will make, besides their 

 feeding value. Dr. A-^oelcker, found farmers who claimed that the greatest 

 value could be gained from the clover crop by raising clover seed. He got 

 them to experiment carefully as to plowing under, feeding it off, and letting 

 it go to seed, and proved to them that the advantage was just in the order 

 named, plowing under being most profitable and raising seed least so. 



Chairman Green then read the following article on Rotation of Crops by 

 Prof. J. \V. Sanborn, describing the system which he was practicing on the 

 college farm, and which he recommended to Missouri farmers as worthy of 

 practice : 



"This system is one of rotation of crops and the feeding of the same on 

 the land. The rotation suited to a large part of this section is a two year 

 one. Taking, say 120 acres of plow land, we would divide it and crop as 

 follows : Starting with timothy sod, 20 acres should be manured and plowed 

 for corn in the spring following. This is cut up in the fall, shocked and 

 husked as soon as dry, the corn cribbed in narrow bins and the fodder put 

 into stacks; the land plowed for oats in the spring, and seeded down to 

 clover. The oats are cut early while green for hay, thus giving the clover a 

 chance to come on and make a second crop. The next or third season two 

 crops of clover are cut, the second one for seed, and the land manured and 

 plowed in the fall, sowed to wheat, and seeded to timothy, which is allowed 

 to remain two years, being manured and plowed for corn after the second 

 crop is taken off. Thus we have completed the round of six years, and have 

 in the time grown seven crops (two crops of clover in one year) and have 

 manured the land twice. When the system is extended to the whole 130 

 acres the crops for each year will be, 20 acres of corn, 20 of oats, 20 of 

 clover, 20 of wheat and 40 of Timothy. This round is to be continued, 

 plowing up the 20 acres of Timothy each year which has borne two crops. 

 Thus the land is not exhausted by continued cropping of one crop, and the 

 entire farm is manured once in three years, or if one crop is manured a year, 

 once in six years. 



''Of the crops grown only the wheat is sold, the rest being all fed upon 

 the farm, and the manure carefully saved and returned to the land. This 



