74 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



tained in the manure we apply, for we start a chemical action 

 by which compounds are formed in the soil, and fertilizing sub- 

 stances which are inert and unavailable, are unlocked and brought 

 within reach of plants. In enriching the farm we should ex- 

 haust home resources before attempting to buy manures. There 

 are thousands of farmers buying manures from the village and 

 drawing it to their farms at heavy expense, or buying commer- 

 cial manures, who have never yet half utilized the sources of 

 plant food on their own farms. 



How shall we get the most manure on the farm? Not by 

 the system generally practiced, for I think that, on a majority 

 of the farms I have seen, the amount lost is much greater than 

 that which is saved. On many farms the wheat is thrashed in 

 the fields or wood lot, where the straw is left often for years 

 to slowly decay. The corn is husked in the fields from the 

 standing stalk, and through the winter the cattle roam over th( 

 farm and get a precarious living from the stalk pastures. The 

 manure from the horse stables is thrown out of a window and 

 accumulates in a pile, where it heats and burns out its nitrogen, 

 and is then leached of its more valuable soluble constituents, until 

 it possesses but little value. The hogs are penned for fattening, 

 on some stony knoll or ravine, for the very reason that the rains 

 will wash away their dung and leave them a clean place to feed. 

 This picture of mismanagement is not overdrawn, and that 

 must be a rare neighborhood where one could ride even an hour 

 or two without seeing it verified in a greater or less degree. 



One reason why farmers are not more careful to save manure 

 is, I think, that they apply what they do save in such a condi- 

 tion, and on such soil and in such a way, as to get but little good 

 from it. It would probably astonish a farmer who is drawing 

 out a dripping load of half-rotted straw called, by courtesy, 

 manure if he could see how much, or, rather, how little, actual 

 plant food his load contained. A ton of average farm-yard 

 manure contains nearly three-fourths of its weight of water, and 

 but twenty-three pounds of valuable plant food, the remainder 

 being made up of sand, lime, carbonaceous matter, etc. ; and, if 

 this is true of average manure, we can largely discount the value 



