1000 THE COMPLETE GRAZIER. BOOK XL, 



This material may be purchased food oil-cake or grain which he 

 uses directly for producing meat or milk, and indirectly for enriching 

 his dung ; or it may be purchased in the form of direct plant food 

 that is artificial manure for increasing the weight of his crops. More 

 commonly the farmer purchases both feeding stuffs and artificial 

 manures. The latter we shall treat of later on. Let us for the present 

 consider what it is that we contribute to the food resources of the soil 

 in manuring by means of stock. 



An animal is only able to assimilate a comparatively small portion 

 of the food that it consumes. The greater portion by far of its food is 

 temporarily spent in the maintenance of life and warmth, and some is 

 evacuated unutilised; but only a small proportion is retained per- 

 manently by the animal. The rest is given off in breath, in perspira- 

 tion, in the urine, and in the faeces or solid excreta. The matter 

 exhaled in the breath and given off in perspiration is almost wholly 

 aqueous and carbonaceous matter. Most of the unretained nitrogen 

 and all the unretained mineral matters are found in the urine and 

 faeces. Roughly speaking, it may be taken that not more than from 

 one-fifth to one-tenth of the nitrogen and mineral salts contained in 

 the food consumed by farm animals is stored up in their carcasses, and 

 sold in the form of live-stock or dairy produce. The balance the 

 greatly preponderating balance remains for restoration, if it be 

 carefully treated, to the soil. In the old days when there were no 

 purchased feeding stuffs and no purchased manures, the fertility of 

 land was maintained entirely by taking care of this balance, and it was 

 to avoid rapid exhaustion of the land that landlords used to bind their 

 tenants down to sell no hay, or straw, or roots. To sell an acre of 

 hay or roots is to part with a considerable amount of wealth in the 

 shape of nitrogen and minerals. To consume them on the farm is to 

 part with but a tenth part of this wealth in the form of meat and dairy 

 produce, the great bulk being, in theory at all events, retained for re- 

 utilisation by succeeding crops. Threshed corn was the only, vegetable 

 produce that a tenant farmer used to be allowed to export from the 

 farm. 



We said just now " in theory at all events," because the proportion 

 of the residual manurial value of feeding stuffs that is actually 

 economically utilised depends upon the mode of consumption, and also 

 upon other considerations. 



When sheep or other stock are grazed, their evacuations fall directly 

 upon the land, which thus receives all. When, however, food is 

 consumed in the farm-yard, there are various incidental sources of loss 

 before the excreta actually reach the land. No doubt, under bad 

 systems of management, a large proportion of the most valuable matter 

 in dung is lost or wasted before it reaches the land, and much is lost 

 even under the best. 



The value of the manure contributed to land by stock depends 

 partly on the kind of stock and their age, and partly upon the food 

 from which it is produced. Thus young growing animals that have to 

 build up their muscles and skeletons retain more nitrogen and phos- 

 phates than do adult animals whose increase in weight is mainly of fat, 

 which contains no nitrogen and phosphates. Again, cows in-calf or 



