MANAGEMENT OF MANURES ON GRAIN-FARMS. 123 



than will pay you for waiting a year, and for cutting and curing 

 the clover and drawing back the manure. If you plow it 

 under, you are sure of it. There is no loss. In feeding it out, 

 you may lose more or less from leaching, and injurious fermenta- 

 tion. But, of course, you need not lose anything, except the little 

 that is retained in the flesh, or wool, or milk, of the animals. As 

 tiling are on many farms, it is perhaps best to plow under the 

 closer for manure at once. As things ought to be, it is a most 

 wasteful practice. If you know how to feed out the hay to advan- 

 tage, and take pains to save the manure (and to add to its value by 

 feeding oil-cake, bran, etc., with it), it is far better to mow your 

 clover, once for hay, and once for seed, than to plow it under. 

 Buy oil-cake and bran with the money got from the seed, and 

 growing clover-seed will not injure the land. 



I am glad to hear that Mr. Geddes occasionally sells straw. I 

 once sold 15 tons of straw to the paper-makers for $150, they 

 drawing it themselves, and some of my neighbors criticised me 

 severely for doing so. It is not considered an orthodox practice. 

 I do not advocate selling straw as a rule ; but, if you have more 

 than you can use to advantage, and it is bringing a good price, 

 sell part of the straw and buy bran, oil-cake, etc., with the money. 

 To feed nothing but straw to stock is poor economy ; and to rot 

 it down for manure is no better. Straw itself is not worth $3.00 

 a ton for manure ; and as one ton of straw, spread in an open 

 yard to rot, will make, in spring, about four tons of so-called 

 manure, and if it costs 50 cents a ton to draw out and spread it, 

 the straw, even at this comparatively high estimate of its value, 

 nets you, when fed out alone, or rotted down, only $1.00 a ton. 



I had about 30 tons of straw. Fed out alone or rotted down it 

 would make 120 tons of mr.nure. After deducting the expense of 

 hauling, and spreading, it nets me on the land, $30. Now sell 

 half the straw for $150, and buy three tons of oil-cake to feed 

 out with the other half, and you would have about seventy tons of 

 manure. The manure from the fifteen tons of straw is worth, say 

 $45, and from the three tons of oil-cake, $60, or $105. It will 

 cost $35 to draw and spread it, and will thus net on the land, $70. 

 So far as the manure question is concerned, therefore, it is far 

 better to sell half your straw, and buy oil-cake with the money, 

 than to feed it out alone and I think it is also far better for the 

 stock. Of course, it would be better for the farm, not to sell any 

 of the straw, and to buy six tons of oil-cake to feed out with it; 



