70 



success in Agriculture is the concentration of man are 

 and labor. A poor soil, with little labor, little 

 tillage, and no manure will never produce a large crop 

 of green corn, nor any other kind of forage. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



LOSS OF MANURE. 



While making vast piles of manure, by feeding 

 grain and green crops, are you able to save all the 

 residue ? 



Certainly not. That would be impossible. 



How much of it do you lose ? 



Alderman Mechi declares: " Upon a careful investi- 

 gation, we safely assert that 20 per cent, of ordinary 

 farmyard manure is wasted. An examination often 

 farm homesteads consecutively taken has fully 

 established this supposition." 



Manure is the farmer's capital. What business- 

 can be carried on with profit, if you are obliged to 

 borrow money at an interest of 20 per cent. ? 



And if you lose 20 per cent of your capital every 

 year, where is the difference between you and the 

 reckless borrower ? 



D^es Mechi save all the manure ? Yes we may 

 say all of it. It is mads over water-tight troughs, 

 and is care f ally washed into a great tank, from 

 which it is pumped by a steam engine, through three- 

 inch iron pipes, over all the farm. But this is not 

 all he saves by the operation. 



It will cost you, at least, fifty cents a ton to haul 

 and spread the contents of the barnyard on any 

 distant field. It costs him but four cents per ton to 



