MANAGEMENT OF FARMS. 29 



The value of barn-yard manure must be conceded by every 

 practical farmer, but true economy must deal with the cost, 

 not only of producing it, but the cost of its application. In 

 old times, when farmers had large families of boys, with no 

 other occupation but the farm, and wages of hired men were 

 almost nominal, and when the chief production of the farm, 

 for want of a ready market, had to be consumed on the form, 

 the labor of manipulation of manure from the stable to the 

 barn-yard, and thence to the field, was an inexpensive recre- 

 ation of practical industry, of winter amusement to keep the 

 boys and hired man in practice ; but Avhen hay and straw find 

 a ready market at three or four fold the former prices, and 

 labor is scarce and dear, and the boys have gone into other 

 avocations away from home, the feeding out hay and straw to 

 stock during a long winter, for the purpose of making manures 

 to fertilize the farm, is a mpst expensive mode of producing 

 crops, as compared with the sale of surplus hay and straw for 

 money to buy fertilizers with which to restore your exhausted 

 field. For instance, a cow will consume at least two tons of 

 hay during the winter, worth, at present prices, $30 to $40, 

 and no farmer can hope that $10 worth of manure will be 

 produced thereby. The milk and butter of the average cow 

 for the year will not compensate the farmer for the labor of 

 the year and pasture during the summer, to say nothing of 

 the interest and risk of the capital invested in the cow, and 

 the value of the barn-room and additional fences of the pasture- 

 land requisite for her keeping. It is true, there are excep- 

 tions to this, and milk and butter are a prime necessity to the 

 farmer's family. The argument deals only with the practice 

 of keeping stock beyond this necessity, for the purpose of 

 making fertilizers for the farm, which it is contended is an 

 enormous waste of means, and seriously cripples the farmer 

 by his unwisely undertaking the business of making fertilizers 

 at a cost far beyond their real value. 



Twenty loads of barn-yard manure is certainly worth $40, 

 and costs the farmer perhaps twice that sum in the consump- 

 tion of hay by the necessary number of cattle over and above 

 their winter product of milk, even if the cattle are not dry 

 during that season. These twenty loads, worth $40, will 

 fertilize but an acre of land, while half that sum will furnish a 



