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at less than a tenth of the total cost of purchasing, hauling 

 and applying commercial fertilizers of equal fertilizing value. 

 We consider stable manure second in value only to legumin- 

 ous crops for maintaining and increasing the productivity of 

 the farms of the United States. 



Stable manure that can be applied to the land is, in our 

 opinion, worth more to the Corn Belt farmer than the profit 

 gained by the application of any of the commercial fertilizers. 

 We have used raw bone meal to some slight advantage and 

 the application of several car-loads of rock phosphate has 

 increased the yield and improved the quality of our farm 

 crops sufficiently to justify the expenditure. Notwithstanding 

 this, we have made a thousand dollars by the profitable pur- 

 chase of stable manure where we have made one hundred 

 dollars by using mineral fertilizers. 



VALUE OP STABLE MANURE 



Stable and barnyard manures are without doubt the most 

 variable in chemical composition of any of the manures and 

 fertilizers used for enriching the land. A ton of pure 

 excrement from mature stock fed largely on nitrogenous 

 feeds, such as clover and alfalfa, might easily be worth as 

 much as five tons of coarse, strawy manure from poorly fed 

 stock. For this reason it is impossible to determine the 

 value of a ton of manure until after it has been analyzed. 



Besides adding humus and thus improving the physical 

 condition of the soil, stable manure contains, to a greater 

 or less extent, such plant foods as nitrogen, phosphate and 

 potassium. These elements are essential to all plant growth 

 and are deficient in most soils of the Corn Belt. A ton of 

 good stable manure contains about ten pounds of nitrogen, 

 five pounds of phosphoric acid and ten pounds of potash. 

 If these elements were to be obtained from the commercial 

 fertilizers on the very best terms they would cost $2.65 per 



