FERTILIZATION. 141 



other half-acre I applied good, solid, barnyard manure, at 

 the rate of seven cords per acre. T planted corn, and the 

 result was in favor of the manure. The fertilizers produced 

 about equal crops. I will say here, that my crop was about 

 seventy bushels to the acre, — a good crop. The second 

 year I continued the same application. The third year, I 

 laid the whole down to grass. The first crop of grass, where 

 the barnyard manure was put, was a heavy crop ; where 

 there was no manure of any kind put upon the land, it was- 

 poor, of course. On the two half-acres where the commer- 

 cial fertilizers were put, it was just about as poor as where 

 there was nothing put on the quarter of an acre. It is now 

 four years since I tried this experiment, and that half-acre 

 where the barnyard manure was put still yields a good crop 

 of grass and has done so continually during these four years ; 

 while the rest of the field, where there was nothing put, and 

 where the two varieties of fertilizers were put, have been 

 just about equally poor in their production. That experi- 

 ment has been very valuable to me, and because of its value 

 I wanted to bring it before you, showing, as it does, in my 

 opinion, the diflerence in lasting qualities between commer- 

 cial fertilizers, so called, and the old-foshioned barnyard 

 manure. 



Our friend who spoke upon the dairy interest to-day said 

 a great deal about using absorbents in the barn to absorb the 

 urine of the cow. That is a very important point. I be- 

 lieve our agricultural chemists (if we have any of them here 

 I presume they will bear me out in the statement ) consider 

 that there is more value in the urine for fertilizing purposes 

 than in the solid excrements of the animal. This is demon- 

 strated to be so by analysis ; whether it will hold out true in 

 practice, of course, I cannot tell ; but there is no question of 

 the great value of the fertilizing elements in the urine of ani- 

 mals. How many cases are there all about us where farmers 

 are allowino^ it to run to waste and deriving^ little or no benefit 

 from it ? In this new method of raising dairy products, where 

 they save it so carefully in order to preserve the butter from 

 being tainted, they gain another valuable advantage by that 

 process ; they save it by absorption. That ingredient is lost 

 to many of our farmers ; and in answering the question. 



