238 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Off. Doc, 



merely a question of conditions under which a man is working. The 

 main difference between his fertilizer and tlie commercial article is 

 that in applying the barnyard manure he is adding humus-making 

 material to his soil, which the commercial fertilizer lacks. 



And right here comes in a question of farm economy. In what 

 way can we get this humus-making material most economically? 

 Shall we depend on hauling it there or shall we grow it already 

 spread over the land by the use of the mineral fertilizers used on 

 legume crops? As a rule, the best farming is done where some 

 form of live stock husbandry is practiced, but it is nevertheless per- 

 fectly practicable to increase and maintain the productiveness of 

 our soils through the use of legume crops, aided by the mineral ele- 

 ments used for the increase of these crops, and there may be farmers 

 who will find it more economical in their conditions to have the 

 humus-making material grown already spread on the land than to 

 haul it there laboriously in the form of barnyard manure. Of 

 course I would never advise carelessness in the making and use 

 of the manurial accumulation which necessarily occurs on all farms. 

 But I differ from many, who would under all conditions make a sort 

 of fetish of a manure pile, and think that all farmers can afford to 

 feed cattle at an actual loss and make it good in the manure. 



As a rule, in many cases, it will be found that there has been a 

 big price paid for the manure. By the proper use of the artificial 

 forms of potassium and phosphorus for the increased production of 

 the legumes it is perfectly practicable to get increased supplies of 

 combined nitrogen for the use of succeeding crops, and to get a 

 far larger amount of humus-making material than we could possible 

 afford to haul there in stable manure. 



But again the matter of farm economy comes in. This course as- 

 sumes that all the legume crops are to be used directly as manure. 

 We have grown, for instance, a crop of clover or cow peas which 

 will make at least two tons per acre. This hay is worth for feed- 

 ing on the farm |1() a ton. Can we, for any of our ordinary farm 

 crops, afford to bury |20 worth of valuaj)le feed in the soil as 

 manure? This question becomes all the more important when we 

 understand that in feeding this hay we can, by any reasonable care 

 of the manure, recover at least 75 per cent, of its manurial value, 

 and perhaps more, so that in burying it as manure we are losing the 

 feeding value, so that the cases are very rare in which it will pay a 

 farmer to ignore live stock feeding and depend on "chemicals and 

 clover" for the increased productiveness of his acres. It is rather 

 a question of possibility than of profitability, so that, argue as we 

 may, we come back finally to the fact that the growing of forage 

 crops, and the feeding of live stock, lie at the very foundation of im- 

 proved agriculture with the great majority of farmers. We are too 

 apt to consider only the market value of the feed in estimating 

 the cost of animals fed, instead of the actual cost of the production 

 of the feed, and the loss to the farm in selling it. 



This brings me finally to the consideration of the practical methods 

 for the improvement of the productiveness of our soils. In lectur- 

 ing last winter at Institutes in Bucks county, near the city of Phila- 

 delphia, I was surprised to notice so little clover, and on urging the 

 farmers to give more attention to clover and a shorter rotation I 

 was met by the response "We cannot grow clover any more." The 



