No. 4.] BARNYARD MANURE. 301 



SUGGESTIONS FOR THE USE OF BARNYARD MANURE. 



BY CHAS. WELLINGTON, PH.D., PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY, MASSACHU- 

 SETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



In these latter days of human progress every department 

 of activity has become complex, and is with every day be- 

 coming more so. That most important and fundamental of 

 all callings, /arm/n^, offers no exception here. Of all the 

 factors that enter into his business, over which he has control, 

 barnyard manure is at once the most valuable and the most 

 abused by the farmer. It is the most valuable, because, 

 although a waste product of all general and stock farming, 

 it nevertheless contains the three most costly elements of 

 plant food (nitrogen, potash and phosphoric acid), and, 

 what is more important, it is the only entire all-round fertil- 

 izer known. It is the most abused, because, the farmer, 

 either knowingly or unknowingly, handles it wastefully, 

 and largely allows it to become valueless before reaching the 

 growing crop. 



Professor Roberts allows $250, at least, as the value of 

 the manure for seven months on a small farm with four 

 horses, twenty cows, fifty sheep and ten pigs. By the pres- 

 ent wasteful management, one-third of this, $83.33, is on 

 the average lost to the farmer. The annual value of this 

 material for the United States is placed at $2,071,400,000. 

 One-third, or $690,466,666, is lost annually to the farmers 

 of this country. Could any other national business be car- 

 ried on with such a loss and be made to pay ? This is only 

 one of the much-talked-of " ivastes of the fanji," and yet this 

 alone furnishes abundant proof that farming does pay. For 

 that large number of so-called "farmers" ivho knowingly 

 waste their barnyard manure there is positively no help. 

 They also waste at every point ; they are not business men, 

 and therefore they are not farmers. For true farmersrwho 



