PROFITS OF THE FARMER MANURES, &C. 153 



Of the unmannred land $38 80 



Of the mauured land 153 00 



Making the difference of total profits for twelve years $114 20 



or |!) 50 per auniim, almost the prime cost of the land. 



" It" we extend the calculation to ten acres instead of one, the results will be in the same 

 proportion, and we shall have the total profits of ten acres unmannred, and allowance made 

 as above for one year's rest in three, $388 in twelve years, or $32 33 per annum ; and of the 

 same ten acres manui'ed, and allowance for clover-seed as above, $1,530 in twelve years, or 

 $127 50 per aimum, making the total ditference for twelve years $1,142. So that every 

 farmer who makes two hundred loads of manure more than liis usual quantity, and applies it 

 to ten acres of land such as that described, and pursues the system designated m the Table, 

 with a liberal use of clover-seed and plaster, may calculate on adduig $1,142 to the clear 

 profits of his fami every twelve years ; while he who from cai'elessuess and laziness loses the 

 opportunity of making that additional quantity of manure, loses also the chance of reahzing 

 an equal sum in the same lime. 



" If we atti'ibute all the difference to the mamu'e, clover and plaster, (and no other cause 

 of the increased profits is supposed,) then we have the expenditure of $26, (the cost of the 

 manure, &x;.,) yielding in twelve years $114 20, or about thirty-sLx per centum per annum. 

 In other words, the Table shows that money and labor expended in the making, saving and 

 application of manure, at an expense not exceeding one dollar for every wagon-load, and ac- 

 companied with the use of plaster aud clover, yields an annual profit of thirty-sLx per cent. 

 Rather a better business than shaving at thirty-thrpe and a third, aud certainly much more 

 agi-eeable and honorable. ^Ve all know, moreover, that if the shaver loses his money, he 

 must lose along with it the 33 J per cent. ; so, too, the farmer, who loses a load of manure, 

 loses a dollar which, had it been saved and judiciously used, would have yielded an annual 

 interest of thirty-six per cent. Now the layv forbids our taking more than six per cent, for 

 the use of our money, yet what folly do we deem it to throw money away. But the law 

 allows us to make all that we can from our manure : what excessive folly, then, to throw it 

 away, when eveiy dollar's worth of it properly invested will yield us so handsome a return! 

 A wise man has told us that ' a penny saved is two pence clear ' ; if this be true of money, 

 how much more truly may it be said of manure, that a penny-worth saved is a shilling clear ! 



" The second Table discloses the fact that the six clover crops yield a gi-eater net profit 

 than the six grain crops. This will perhaps appear startling to many, but is what all who 

 have investigated the subject were ready to expect. The fact that land in grass yields a 

 higher profit than when cultivated in graui, has been long known and practiced upon ia 

 many parts of this country, Great Britaia and Europe. The mysteiy is not that the fact is 

 so, but that any should at this day remain ignorant of it, and fail to reap its important bene- 

 fits. Col. .Tolm Taylor, the author of Arator, in an Essay on Ai-tificial Grasses, published in 

 the American Farmer, Vol. I., page 257, places this subject in so forcible a point of view 

 that I am sure the Society will thank me for using his language instead of my own. He 

 says : 



' In Holland, where the cnltivation of grass is generally prefeired to that of bread, land sells 

 higher as land, without having its price enhanced by adventitious circumstances, than iu any 

 other country. The industrious and profit-loving Dutch choose rather to import than to raise their 

 own bread-stuffs at the expense of diminishing the culture of the artiiicial grasses. They are as 

 little likely as any people in the world to make an election by which they would lose money. In 

 England, the cultivation of grass is so much more profitable than that of bread-stuff as to have ob- 

 taiued a preference at the expense of considerable importations of the latter. The bearings of 

 this fact are weighty. Hay and butchers' meat in England are nearly of the same price a^s 

 in this country — whereas, wheat there is often three times dearer than wheat here, and seldom 

 less than double in price. Yet the English farmers prefer raising artificial grasses to raising 

 wheat. Again, the reut as well as price of land is constantly highest in those countries where the 

 culture of artificial grasses is pushed farthest. In England, the rent of fine artificial meadows 

 sometimes extends to twenty dollars an acre, rarely diminishes to ten, and ir. never so low as the 

 rent of adjoining arable land, however good. It must be our best lands wliicli would rent at one 

 dollar an acre for a term of twenty-one years ; and even at this low rent both the land and the 

 tenant are generally ruined. No\v when we see the best grazing lands there renting higher 

 than the best arable lands, and their fanns renting ten times higher than ours, does it not plainly 

 follow, that both a great profit and a vast improvement of the soil must arise from the culture of 

 artificial grasses ; and that the difference in the rent between their fanns and ours is in a great 

 measure produced by the latter circum.stance '? This conclusion is warranted by the fact that the 

 longer the term of the lease is, the hif^her is the rent there, and lower here ; because the tenant 

 in one case calculates on a mode of tillage which will improve the land, and in the other upon its 

 becoming poorer.' 



" We see the same condition of things throughout the United States. Wherever the mo.st 

 attention is paid to the propagation and ctdtivation of the grass crops, the rents, profits and 

 prices of land are the highest. Indeed it must be so, since the profits of fin-ming consist of the 

 joint products of land and labor, aud the greater the proportion of the labor to the total pro- 

 duct the higher the rate of profit must be, to make the business profitable. This I am dis- 

 (34.^) 



