MANURES. 73 



IV. 



MANURES. 



THAT the majority of farmers need to be educated on the 

 subject of making, saving, and applying manure requires 

 no argument. Look about you in almost any locality, see 

 how small an amount of the land is manured at all, how little 

 intelligence is shown in handling and applying the manure used, 

 how universal the waste of manure, and how large an area is 

 cultivated which does not pay the farmer even fair wages for 

 his labor, and you will agree with me that the work of fertili- 

 zing the farm must begin with the education of the farmer. 



In writing on this subject I shall not attempt to be scientific, 

 but treat it from the stand-point of the practical farmer. In 

 another chapter you will find the chemical constituents of plants 

 and manures given, and I recommend a careful study of that 

 chapter, for the intelligent farmer should not be willing to live in 

 entire ignorance of a science in which he is so deeply interested. 



To farm profitably we must maintain the fertility of the soil, 

 and in many cases restore fertility to soils that have been im- 

 poverished by bad management. This necessitates care, econ- 

 omy, and intelligence in saving and applying all the manurial 

 substances at our command. The practical fact meets us that 

 without manure and rotation, our fields produce less from year 

 to year, until they reach a point and many of them have al- 

 ready reached it when they will yield no profit. It is our 

 custom to speak of such soils as exhausted ; it would be nearer 

 the truth to say that their available plant food was exhausted. 

 When we apply manure to the soil, we do more than furnish it 

 with the amount of potash, nitrogen, phosphoric acid, etc., con- 



