Corn Growers' Association. 167 



soil permanently. The immediate benefit is due to the soluble 

 form of the nitrogen left in the legume roots possibly to the better- 

 ing of sanitary conditions of the soil, and to the fact that the 

 amount of nitrogen is somewhat larger than in the roots of other 

 crops, so that the effect is very perceptible on the crop following. 

 The actual effect upon the soil, however, is to cause a more rapid 

 removal of the phosphorus and potassium supplies due to the 

 larger crop yields secured, and thus give a stimulative action, 

 rather than a permanent building up of the soil's productiveness. 



THE FEEDING OF ANIMALS. 



The consideration of the effect of legume crops as well as of 

 grain and grass constantly removed from the soil, suggests the 

 next essential in a constructive system of agriculture, namely, 

 the feeding of crops on the farm. No rational system of agri- 

 culture according to our present knowledge omits the feeding of 

 farm animals and the return of the manure to the land. When 

 crops are thus fed, the resulting manure will contain approximate- 

 ly 80 per cent, of the nitrogen, 75 per cent, of the phosphorus and 

 90 per cent, of the potassium existing in the feed, and if this 

 manure is carefully returned to the land, either by the animals 

 themselves as they run in the pasture or by the manure spreader 

 when fed in lots or stables, the farmer is saving approximately 

 four-fifths of this plant food which would be removed if the crops 

 were sold. And in the case of legumes which secure from the air 

 a large share of the nitrogen found in their tops, when these are 

 fed back on the land there is an actual building up of the nitrogen 

 content of the soil. It is not for me to enter into the economic 

 results of a system whereby every good farmer is a stock feeder 

 but I will venture the opinion that an over-production of meat is 

 very unlikely with the increasing population. Be that as it may, 

 the fact remains that the man who is to farm most constructively 

 and intensively for the next twenty-five to fifty years must be a 

 stock man. The time may come when science will change our 

 methods in this respect, but for the present there is no way for 

 the general farmer to build up land economically without the feed- 

 ing of animals. In a word, all our roughage and all grains except- 

 ing possibly wheat, and of course such small seeds as clover and 

 grass seeds, should remain on the farm and either be fed, or as 

 in the case of the coarsest material such as straw, they should be 

 used for litter in stables and thus returned. 



