Manure (Continued). 153 



advise, although it might be wise sometimes. But one has no busi- 

 ness advising a stranger to run in debt. As to the amount of 

 manure one should have in order to afford a spreader, I cannot 

 answer much better. I have given carefully the advantages above 

 and prefer every one should figure for himself. One would save 

 time enough in spreading 150 to 200 loads, on my farm, to pay 

 interest and wear and tear, but the better, finer work is very 

 important also. If I had shelter for it, and money to invest, I 

 would not think of doing without, myself, with no more than 

 one hundred loads of manure a year, or even less. Life is too 

 short to put my strength against machinery. Ten dollars a year 

 will cover interest and wear with me. Labor saved, and better 

 work, are safely worth ten cents a load to me. But, frankly, 

 many persons buy spreaders and do not make them pay. 



I live in a dairy section, and there are many stable floors that 

 leak, letting the best of the manure steadily go to waste, and 

 worse than waste sometimes go down into the earth to pollute 

 the well water, or render the air impure about the premises. 

 And then many of these very men buy fertilizers. Perhaps it 

 was a little rough, but I have sometimes asked these friends what 

 they would think of a dairyman who would milk his cows, set 

 the milk, skim off the cream and throw it away, feed out the skim 

 milk or make it into cheese, and then buy his butter to eat. Of 

 course' they could only say he was a simpleton. But how much 

 different is it to waste the very cream of the manure and then buy 

 fertilizers buy back in bags what they have allowed to go to 

 waste? They do not fully realize what they are doing, is one 

 great trouble. Familiarity begets unconcern. They have always 

 done so, and their fathers did, and they do not think anything 

 about it, while beyond all question, sometimes a cement floor and 

 manure saved and properly used afterwards would pay better 

 than any other investment of equal amount they had made on the 

 farm . 



An amusing instance of going along blindly without think- 

 ing or studying was given by my friend, B. C. Ellis, at an insti- 

 tute last winter. He happened by a field where a man was burn- 

 ing straw before plowing, and stopped and had a talk with him. 

 He finally drew out of him that he had bought a certain quantity 

 of such a fertilizer to use on field. Then he got an estimate of 

 number of pounds of straw burned, and then quietly told the man 

 he had burned up forty dollars' worth of nitrogen and paid just 

 forty-eight dollars for nitrogen in his commercial fertilizer. Mr. 

 Ellis was then inspector of fertilizers, and knew about their in- 

 gredients pretty well. I saw myself last winter not a few straw 

 stacks burning. Often to hasten the job they had pulled the 

 stacks to pieces and scattered them around some. 



In regard to the matter of fertilizers I do not care to say 

 much. I do not use them and never have except by way of ex- 



