186 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 



there being of them so great a surplus, their dis- 

 position became a nuisance. Now there are pro- 

 duced from them oil, fertilizer, cottolene and meal 

 for cattle, and they have become as valuable as the 

 cotton itself. 



There is not a manufacturing plant to-day but 

 what directs its greatest energy towards the con- 

 servation and utilization of its by-products, for 

 herein lies its greatest profits. 



But the by-products of the farm have been ne- 

 glected and destroyed through all the ages, and 

 thus untold wealth has been utterly wasted upon 

 farms. In the destruction of cornstalks, a by- 

 product of the farm looked upon generally as a 

 farm nuisance, there has been more wealth de- 

 stroyed than ever possessed by the Standard Oil 

 Company. 



The utilization of the cornstalks for one year in 

 siloes would produce succulent food sufficient to 

 feed cattle and other stock that would produce a 

 profit great enough to almost pay the National 

 debt, besides furnishing another by-product, ma- 

 nure, that would furnish fertility to the soil suffi- 

 cient to produce such increased crop yields that 

 would feed the people of our nation. Besides no 

 one can estimate the untold wealth that would 

 have been conserved to the farmers of America 

 had our stock fields been held as sacred ground, 

 too sacred to allow a foot of them to be pastured, 

 or a single stalk to be burned, so that all the stalks 

 upon our corn fields might be incorporated with 

 the soil by proper plowing under, thus preserving 

 the great quantities of nitrogen, phosphorus, po- 

 tassium and organic matter they contain. In the 



