Manurial Value of Feeding Stuffs. 243 



tion of flesh or milk more or less of the fertilizing constituents the 

 food furnishes, and voiding the rest in the excrements. The fatten- 

 ing animal takes little or no fertility from the feed it receives. The 

 farmer should know that the animal creates nothing in the way of 

 fertilizing value, so that if it is fed wheat straw, for example, it will 

 void manure low in fertilizing elements, while if fed oil meal, wheat 

 bran, or clover hay it will furnish a rich manure. 



378. Selling fertility. The table in the preceding article shows 

 that those who sell such crops as hay, corn, and wheat dispose of far 

 more fertility for the money returned than do those who sell ani- 

 mals or their products, produced from the crops they raise. The 

 farmer who sells 1,000 Ibs. of clover hay, worth perhaps $5, parts 

 with about as much fertility as if he had sold 1,000 Ibs. of fat ox 

 or fat pig, worth $50 or more. Based on the selling price milk car- 

 ries off much fertility from the farm, and butter practically none. 

 Farm crops may be regarded as raw products, while farm animals, 

 milk, wool, butter, etc., represent manufactured products. A large 

 amount of raw material in the form of grass, hay, corn, etc., is put 

 into animals, and the heavy waste or by-product resulting, in the 

 form of manure, when carried back to the fields conserves most of 

 the fertility. The stock farmer who feeds his crops to live stock is 

 a manufacturer as well as a producer, with two possible profits in- 

 stead of one, while his farm loses but little of its fertility. On the 

 other hand, the farmer who grows and sells grain, hay, and straw 

 is selling a large amount of fertility, the need of which will surely 

 be apparent as time goes on and his fields give smaller and smaller 

 returns. Such a farmer is slowly but surely mining out phosphorus 

 and potash from his soil, which can be replaced only by some pur- 

 chased material. The successful cropping of land rests primarily 

 on its fertility. Crops remove this fertility, and manure restores it. 

 As one does not expect returns from his animals without giving 

 them feed, so he should not crop his fields without feeding them also. 



379. Fertilizing value of feeds. If for study purposes we place 

 the same money values on the nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash 

 in feeding stuffs that these constituents cost in commercial fertil- 

 izers, we are in position to compare the several feeding stuffs on the 

 basis of the fertility they contain. On this basis wheat bran and 

 corn are compared in the table on the next page. 



We there learn that the fertilizing constituents in 1,000 Ibs. of 

 bran, which is rich in nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, are 

 worth $6.54, and those in the same weight of corn, which is rela- 



