320 FORAGE CROPS 



dollars per acre per year, in addition to paying 

 for all the fertilizer applied, while the land at 

 the close of the five years was more valuable 

 than at the beginning of the test. This plan of 

 growing hay would not only result in increasing 

 the value per acre to the farmer, but largely 

 improved his soil for other crops." 



Recent experiments at Cornell (Bulletins 232, 

 241) did not give very encouraging results on tim- 

 othy with fertilizers alone (muriate potash, acid 

 phosphate, nitrate of soda, and combinations) as 

 compared with good stable manure: "It is per- 

 fectly obvious from these experiments that, on 

 the Dunkirk clay loam on which this experiment 

 was conducted and in this climate and under the 

 conditions of this experiment, stable manure, 

 at fifty cents a load,^ brought much better finan- 

 cial results than any application of commercial 

 fertilizer at current prices for the same. It also 

 demonstrates that on this soil, which has been 

 under cultivation for two or three generations, 

 when stable manure is available, excellent crops 

 of timothy hay may be produced. Where stable 

 manure can be procured in sufficient quantity, 

 the use of commercial fertilizers is not necessary. 



' In making such comparisons as this, everything depends oa the 

 value placed on the manure. It is possible that fifty cents a load for 

 manure is a comparable price on some farms, but farmers cannot buy 

 manure and haul it ut this figure. One dollar a load is probably a fairer 

 price; and for city manures even this figure must be at least doubled. 



