94 Barn and Field Experiments in 1916 



is not the time of the year in which it is supposed there is prof- 

 it in swine in Maine. It is not claimed that these swine were 

 handled in the best or the most economical way. Certainly 

 turnips at 15 cents a bushel do not furnish protein and car- 

 bohydrates at a very moderate cost. Not taking into account 

 the cost of getting the turnips from the storage and cooking 

 them, the nutrients furnished by the turnips at a cost of $27 

 could have been purchased in the form of corn and middlings for 

 two-thirds that price. That is, to compete with the price of 

 mill feeds in the winter of 1916 turnips would need to be grown 

 at a cost of about 10 cents per bushel in the celler. Bran is 

 probably not an economical feed for swine. 



This one trial would seem to indicate that swine may be 

 kept in this State at a profit in winter. An all-the-year round 

 experiment with swine, where the chief growth of the young 

 pigs would be made on pasture — fall sown rye, rape, clover, 

 etc. — would probably prove swine to be one of the most, if not the 

 most, profitable kind of farm live stock in Maine. 



The Winter Handeling Of Farm Manure. 



While it is probably true that the quicker manure can be 

 applied to the land the less is the waste, even though the appli- 

 cation is made after the ground is frozen, the fact. remains that 

 in Maine it is usually necessary to store the droppings during 

 , the winter months. Also it is usually not practicable to apply 

 manure to land during the height of the growing season. It is 

 estimated that approximately 75 per cent of the plant food con- 

 tained in the feeding stuffs used are in the dung and urine 

 voided. As usually handled, much of this is lost. As pointed 

 out in the report of the Sheep Husbandry experiment in Bul- 

 letin 246 there were apparently large losses from the stored 

 manure. In examining the data it was found that the plant 

 food in the feed consumed while the sheep were confined to their 

 winter quarters was worth at ordinary fertilizer prices in the 

 neighborhood of $200 and that the manure from the sheep was 

 valued by the farm superintendent as worth about one-eight of 

 that sum. The manure was left under the sheep in the same 

 way that is practiced by farmers everywhere, so far as the wri~ 



