144 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



to modify our practice accordingly. We are here to 

 direct things. If they do not quite suit us, we change 

 them. In the first place, there are many times in the 

 winter when there is no place to draw manure. There 

 have been times this fall when the ground was damaged 

 and injured more by hauling out the manure than we 

 should have lost by waiting until spring. I do not like to 

 draw manure on Sunday. I do not like to draw manure 

 when there is a great State convention like this going on. 

 There are five months in the year when never a load of 

 manure, except in special circumstances, should be applied. 

 You don't want to apply manure in May, because you are 

 too busy planting. You don't want to apply it in June, 

 because there is no place to put it. You don't want to put 

 it on corn or wheat or oats, and you don't want to put it on 

 your pastures. You don't want to apply it in July, because 

 you are haying and you have no place to put it. You don't 

 want to haul out manure in August, because it is too hot. I 

 take it, you all have some sort of a place in which to store 

 manure for a short time, under special conditions. We 

 began to take out our manure, some two hundred loads, last 

 September, and continued through October and November, 

 and by the last of this month we shall have all our corn 

 ground covered with it. 



Now, there are thousands of farmers in this State and in the 

 State of New York this winter who, from the first day of 

 November until the first day of April, are not getting from 

 their cows in the production of milk and butter as much 

 value as the manure. The principal thing for which they 

 are keeping their cows is for the manure. It seems to me 

 there is no other reason. That should be saved, every bit 

 of it. Put it on the land where it will do the most good. 

 If possible, put it on the surface in the fall where there is a 

 plant growing. 



Question. Do you recommend putting it on top of the 

 snow during the winter ? 



Professor Roberts. If the snow is not more than three, 

 four or five inches deep. I will tell you where there is 

 danger of losing it in surface dressing. Once in eighteen 

 years I have seen manure escaping. There was a fall of 



