84 PRACTICAL CORN CULTURE 
at less than a tenth of the total cost of purchasing, hauling 
and applying commercial fertilizers of equal fertilizing value. 
We consider stable manure second in value only to legumin- 
ous crops for maintaining and increasing the productivity of 
the farms of the United States. 
Stable manure that can be applied to the land is, in our 
opinion, worth more to the Corn Belt farmer than the profit 
gained by the application of any of the commercial fertilizers. 
We have used raw bone meal to some slight advantage and 
the application of several car-loads of rock phosphate has 
increased the yield and improved the quality of our farm 
crops sufficiently to justify the expenditure. Notwithstanding 
this, we have made a thousand dollars by the profitable pur- 
chase of stable manure where we have made one hundred 
dollars by using mineral fertilizers. 
VALUE oF STABLE MANURE 
Stable and barnyard manures are without doubt the most 
variable in chemical composition of any of the manures and 
fertilizers used for enriching the land. A ton of pure 
excrement from mature stock fed largely on nitrogenous 
feeds, such as clover and alfalfa, might easily be worth as 
much as five tons of coarse, strawy manure from poorly fed 
stock. For this reason it is impossible to determine the 
value of a ton of manure until after it has been analyzed. 
Besides adding humus and thus improving the physical 
condition of the soil, stable manure contains, to a greater 
or less extent, such plant foods as nitrogen, phosphate and 
potassium. These elements are essential to all plant growth 
and are deficient in most soils of the Corn Belt. A ton of 
good stable manure contains about ten pounds of nitrogen, 
five pounds of phosphoric acid and ten pounds of potash. 
If these elements were to be obtained from the commercial 
fertilizers on the very best terms they would cost $2.65 per 
