CHAPTER XV. 

 FERTILIZERS WHERE HAY IS THE MONEY CROP. 



There are many who will hold up their hands with horror at the idea of 

 selling hay off the farm. Of course there are few who are so located that 

 they can make hay the most profitable money crop, but where a man is so 

 located that he can make more money in selling hay than in feeding it on the 

 farm, there is no good reason why he should not sell hay as well as any other 

 crop he grows. A crop of timothy removes in each ton 25.2 pounds of nitro- 

 gen, 10.6 pounds of phosphoric acid and 18 pounds of potash. A crop of 

 wheat of 20 bushels per acre will remove 28.32 pounds of nitrogen, 10.68 

 pounds of phosphoric acid and 7.32 pounds of potash, in the grain alone; 

 which is the only part usually sold from the farm. The manurial constitu- 

 ents of a ton of timothy can be replaced in the form of commercial fertilizer 

 for a little over $5. Then if the farmer cannot realize more from the feed- 

 ing of the hay than the market value of hay on the farm, he had better 

 sell the hay and buy the fertilizers, especially as we have shown that in a 

 proper system of rotation he will not need to buy the nitrogen, which is more 

 than half the manurial value of the timothy. But, says one, the manure is 

 a profit, even if the feeding does not return more than the market value of 

 the hay on the farm. It is true that a careful saving of the manure may 

 recover a large part of the manurial value of the hay, but when the labor 

 of caring for the stock is taken into the account, and the great labor of hand- 

 ling the manure over that required for the commercial fertilizers, it will be 

 seen that this apparent profit is really made at a loss. Of course, as we have 

 said before, we consider that the feeding of stock and the making and saving 

 of the manure lies at the very foundation of successful farming in most 

 places; still, we believe in farming for profit, and we could never see the 

 reason for a farmer making a sort of fetich of a manure pile, and spending 

 more feed and labor on its accumulation than the accumulation is worth. 

 We believe in applying common business-like sense to all the operations of 

 the farm, and in localities where it pays better to sell the timothy than tor 

 feed it, I would by all means sell the hay, and depend on fertilizers and 

 legumes to keep up the fertility of the soil. 



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