236 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



In the important investigations which have been conducted 

 in recent years on practical, methods of maintaining and improv- 

 ing soil fertility, one of the most significant results has been the 

 increasing importance which has been given to the use of farm- 

 yard manure. The investigations of Hopkins of Illinois, Thorne of 

 Ohio, and of Miller of Missouri, all agree in the conclusion that 

 farmyard manure must now and hereafter be the main reliance 

 of the American farmer in keeping up and improving the produc- 

 tiveness of his soil. Dr. Hopkins says, "farm manure always has 

 been and, without doubt, always will be, the principal material 

 used in maintaining the fertility of the soil." Director Thorne, as 

 a result of twenty years of careful experimentation with commer- 

 cial fertilizers and farm manure, concludes that "it is possible to 

 bring up the rate of production of a run-down soil to a point ex- 

 ceeding that of its virgin condition, by the intelligent use of com- 

 mercial fertilizers, but the same results may be obtained more cer- 

 tainly, and at a very much smaller cost, by the production and well- 

 informed use of animal manure." 



What is the actual practical value of a ton of farmyard manure 

 produced on the average farm? In asking this question, I am not 

 asking for the chemist's theoretical value, as compared with com- 

 mercial fertilizers, but the actual cash returns in bushels of corn 

 or wheat resulting from the application of a ton of the average 

 manure produced on an average farm. 



There are two methods of estimating farm manure values. 

 The first one is the chemist's method, and may not be the correct 

 statement of the actual cash value of this material to the average 

 farmer. The other, and by far the more practical method of deter- 

 mining manure values, is by actually applying the manure to an 

 acre of land, and compare the increased yield with that on the same 

 land untreated. This latter method has been employed by the Ohio 

 Experiment Station through a period of eighteen years. The re- 

 sults secured by this station are of inestimable value to the farmers 

 of the middle west, and the facts revealed are applicable to our 

 Missouri conditions. 



As a result of eighteen years' careful experiment the Ohio Ex- 

 periment Station has determined that the value of a ton of farm- 

 yard manure from cattle, registered in the cash value of increased 

 crops produced, is $2.27 per ton. The same station has also deter- 

 mined, by careful experiment, that the manure produced by a 

 thousand-pound steer during a six months feeding period will 



