No. 4.] CATTLE FOODS. 29 



we have sold more from the land than we restored to it. 

 The question then for the farmer is, How shall I restore, 

 how shall I build up my farm? How shall I wisely do it? 

 I believe the wise way to do it is to buy grain. I think it 

 is the cheapest way to do it, because when you raise a crop 

 of grain on your land you diminish the fertility of that land. 

 When you raise a crop of anything except the leguminous 

 plants, except the pea and the clover and the bean, and crops 

 of that nature, and draw it off the land, you have taken 

 something out of mother earth. When you buy grain you 

 buy something which has a large manurial value. When a 

 man buys a ton of bran for twenty dollars, I say it is a good 

 investment. Why? Because he buys in that twenty dol- 

 lars' worth of nutrition twelve dollars' worth of manurial 

 value. The man who buys a ton of cotton-seed meal for 

 twenty-eight dollars buys twenty-four dollars' worth of ma- 

 nurial value. The man who buys a ton of corn buys less 

 manurial value. 



Now, this Mr. Johnson is a man who has put just that 

 thing into practice. Not a corn field have I seen on his 

 farm ; not an oat crop waving in the wind ; but I have seen 

 his intense culture of the grasses, — three magnificent crops 

 of grass a year. 



Question. Does he raise clover ? 



Mr. Mills. Yes, he raises clover, but he buys grain. 

 Is not that so, Professor Cheesman ? 



Professor Cheesman. Yes ; he buys tons of it every 

 year. 



Mr. Mills. I propose to make my farm productive by 

 holding firmly to that idea. I propose to take off a good 

 hay crop, and I propose to buy the grain crop, feeling that 

 somebody else can raise that crop cheaper than I can, and 

 that every time I buy a ton of grain and feed it in my barn 

 I am feeding mother earth in the cheapest possible way. 

 Now, gentlemen, I believe that for the milk producer in 

 Massachusetts the way to success is to raise his forage crops 

 and buv his o;rain. 



Mr. L. W. West (of Hadley). I would like to ask the 

 professor what he thinks al)out raising oats in Massachusetts. 

 I do not want to take any risks in that direction. I can raise 



