100 PRACTICAL FAEM CHEMISTRY. 



frequently happens) about the fertilizing value of 

 oil meal, bran, etc., the answers usually and truth- 

 fully state that such materials are excellent fertili- 

 zers, and frequently can be obtained much cheaper, 

 proportionately, than regular manufactured concen- 

 trated manures. The advice, however, is invariably 

 added, to use them as food for cattle or other stock 

 first, and (what is left after having passed through 

 the stock) for plant food next. Animals assimilate- 

 about twenty per cent of plant foods in the meal, 

 and pass eighty per cent into the manure pile. If 

 the meal was bought at a reasonable price, the 

 twenty per cent transformed in animal flesh and 

 bone might pay more than the cost of the whole, 

 and the eighty per cent increase the value of the 

 manure sufficiently to pay the cost of the whole a 

 second time. This may be good logic, but I take 

 it for granted that any farmer progressive enough 

 to seek information about the cheapest available 

 sources of plant food, with the intention of drawing 

 on them, is also intelligent enough to feed his stock 

 properly. He already gives them all that is good 

 for them, and that he is satisfied will keep them in 

 best possible condition for his purposes. He crowds 

 his fattening stock all that he dares to. What 

 more can he do ? To stuff horses, cattle and sheep 

 above what is best for them, merely for the sake of 

 making the manure richer, would be the height of 

 folly. In short, the inquirer and recipient of this 

 advice was in search of plant food, not for food for 

 his stock. Whether it is advisable for him to 

 apply cotton-seed meal, linseed meal, bran, etc., 

 directly to his soil or not, depends wholly on the 

 price at which these goods can be purchased in 

 your available market. 



