244 



Feeds and Feeding. 



tively poor in mineral matter, only $3.62, or about one-half as much. 

 Value of the fertilizing constituents in 1,000 Ibs. of wheat bran and corn. 



Doubling the figures we have the following: 



Value of the fertilizing- constituents in 1 ton of wheat bran__. $13.08 

 Value of the fertilizing constituents in 1 ton of corn 7.24 



These figures mean that the amount of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, 

 and potash found in a ton of bran or corn, if bought in commercial 

 fertilizers, will cost not less than the sums named. It means that 

 the farmer who harvests a ton of corn and seeks to return to the 

 field from which it came the same amount of fertility that was taken 

 out of the soil by this ton of corn must pay not less than $6.90 for 

 the requisite fertilizers if bought in the market. 



In rare cases feeding stuffs are directly used as fertilizers to en- 

 rich the soil. For example, the tobacco planters of Connecticut 1 in 

 1907 bought and spread directly upon their tobacco fields 5,000 tons 

 or 200 carloads of cotton-seed meal, one of the richest and best of 

 feeds for dairy cows and fattening cattle, costing over $30 per ton. 

 Millions of dollars worth of cotton-seed meal are annually used by 

 the planters of the South to fertilize their cotton fields in order to 

 make another crop of cotton. 



Virgin soils as a rule contain great quantities of available fertil- 

 ity, and the pioneer farmers in America, drawing upon Nature's 

 store, have given little consideration to the subject of how their 

 crops are fed and have rarely realized that they are steadily and 

 often wastefully drawing on the store of fertility which represents 

 their principal capital. The western farmer, when marketing corn, 

 considers that in so doing he is selling labor and rent of land. 

 Barely does he realize that he is also selling fertility, to replace 

 which would cost a considerable part of all the crop brings. Eastern 

 farmers and southern planters are in many cases cultivating soils so 



1 Ept. Conn. Expt. Sta., 1907. 



