258 SOILS 



products for the cow: made into products that satisfy 

 hunger, and produce heat and fatty tissue in the body of 

 the animal. Speaking- strictly, this is one way by which 

 man can sell concentrated heat for butter prices. Now, 

 if the dairyman harvests hay and grain as feed and applies 

 nothing whatever to the land to replace the fertility with- 

 drawn, he will gradually reduce the fertility of the soil, 

 but the process of tearing down will be slow. In twenty 

 years a wheat farm may be worn out by continual crop- 

 ping, but to wear out a dairy farm to an equal degree, 

 9,720 years will need to pass. Wheat raising makes swift 

 work in ruining lands, but dairying preserves them. 



Dairying remakes the soil. A great source of profit in 

 dairying lies in the fact that it remakes the soil. When 

 you purchase feed for the cow that more milk may be 

 produced, you add fertility to the land. Such feeds as 

 linseed meal, cotton-seed meal, and bran are exception- 

 ally rich in fertilizing elements. It is not unusual to pur- 

 chase elements of fertility more cheaply in the form of 

 feeds than in the form of fertilizers. And the feed is paid 

 for by the milk. The milk pays also the labor and allows, 

 in every case, where attention and care are given, a fair 

 margin of profit. In this way the fertility of the soil is 

 restored at practically no cost. 



While soil building can be accomplished by using other 

 classes of animals, it is, however, a fact that the dairy cow 

 produces more real fertility than any other farm animal. 

 A cow weighing from twelve to thirteen hundred pounds, 

 if fed to produce milk, during the year produces about 

 twenty-eight hundred pounds of manure. Nearly one- 

 half of this is liquid and should be saved, for it is exceed- 

 ingly rich in fertilizing elements. But right here comes 

 a great loss to the average farm. The liquid manure gets 

 away from the land, which would not be the case were it 



