CAMPBELL'S SOIL CULTURE MANUAL 253 



conversion of the corn and oats and hay into meat, butter, 

 cheese, etc., is the aim of farming operations in general. 

 The grain must finally be fit for human food in some 

 form. Raising live stock is a part of the process of manu- 

 facturing good food out of the grain. 



Dairying and poultry raising go a long way toward 

 completing the natural processes of the farm. Both are 

 possible in some degree on all farms. Sometimes best 

 results are possible in dairying only where there are many 

 farmers combined to work together, but always there is 

 some advantage in keeping a few animals on the farm. 

 As to breeds, feeding and care of live stock that is another 

 question one so broad that it should be treated in sepa- 

 rate volumes but its relationship to other farm operations 

 is easily understood. 



It has been declared with much positiveness that the 

 waste on an average farm represents a value greater than 

 the average profit of farms. If so, then farmers have not 

 done as well as those who have devoted themselves to com- 

 mercial pursuits. The expense of operation of the great 

 packing plants, so it is stated, is paid in full by the receipts 

 from that which formerly went as waste in the processes of 

 meat marketing. A good deal of the same kind of economy 

 is possible on the farm. 



In the matter of preventing waste on the farm nothing 

 is quite equal to cattle and hogs. Between them they 

 glean all that is valuable, But in addition they retain on 

 the farm that which is valuable to soil and which may be 

 returned from time to time in the form of the barnyard 

 manures which are essential to the best farming operations. 

 The application of barnyard manures to the land will go 

 far toward, and is one of the requisites in maintaining the 

 soil fertility and offsetting the evil effects of drouth. 



