MAINTAINING SOIL FERTILITY 317 



manure is considerably less than is commonly 

 stated, the keeping of live-stock remains one of the 

 most economical methods of maintaining soil fertil- 

 ity under certain conditions. These are largely eco- 

 nomic ; as to whether the animals or their products 

 will find a ready market at profitable prices. 



The stock-feeding solution of the problem of 

 maintaining soil fertility is meeting with more and 

 more favour in every part of the country. The 

 farmers of the West, who have seen their crops 

 gradually dwindle under single- crop farming, are 

 awakening to the necessity for a more diversified 

 husbandry, and especially stock husbandry. The 

 farmers of the South are begining to realise that it 

 will pay to split the time-honoured rotation of corn 

 and cotton with a green crop, which may be fed to 

 stock and the manure used to bind together the 

 clay soils which wash so badly. One-third of the 

 land now in cotton could be made to produce as 

 much cotton as at present, if the other two-thirds 

 were used for forage crops for stock. The South 

 has the great advantage of an almost continuous 

 grazing season. In every branch of crop produc- 

 tion there is a renewed appreciation of the oldest 

 and most reliable three-course rotations the 

 land produces crops, the crops pass through farm 

 animals, the manure is returned to the land. Even, 

 the great practical value of green-manuring, which 

 has been demonstrated so conclusively the past few 

 years, has not diminished the demand for animal 

 manures; and green-manuring is usually resorted 

 to only when a sufficient quantity of animal manure 

 cannot be had. 



This growing appreciation of animal manures 

 and of stock husbandry as a means of maintaining 

 fertility is not misplaced. There are few parts of 



