NITROGEN A VALUABLE ELEMENT. 137 



raw material. The effect will be to raise proportionately the price 

 of every commodity offered for sale. 



"On the ordinary farm which markets cereal crops only a 

 part is ever suffiaiently fertile to return a profit. The other 

 acres must be put by to regain fertility and are so much dead 

 capital while they are made ready for a further effort. Not so 

 with a farm devoted to beef as the market crop. Every acre of 

 it may be seen producing year after year in an increasing ratio, 

 and occasional crops such as potatoes — which while they need", a 

 rich soil for their development yet draw but lightly on fertility 

 and are very useful as cleaning cTops — will yield bumper profits 

 in cash." 



This statement applies with full force to what is another very 

 desirable attribute of the silo arid the silage system — that It will 

 so increase the live stock of the farm that many of the products 

 heretofore sold in a raw state, and which contain, and therefore 

 carry away most of the fertility of the farm, may now be fed a' 

 home. 



A few examples will best serve to illustrate this statenaent: 



The fertilizing constituents In a ton of clover hay, as above 

 stated, amount nominally to $10.23. This would mean then that 

 every -time the farmer sells a ton of clover hay, he sells $10.23 

 worth of fertility. So muc^ fertility has gone from the farm for- 

 ever. It would most certainly be wise to feed the clover at home 

 as a balance to the silage ration, thereby keeping the fertility on 

 the farm, and making at the same time some finished product, as 

 cream, milk, butter, cheeSe or beef, the sale of which will not 

 carry away from the farm any great amount of fertility. 



The sale of a ton of butter, which Is perhaps the best example 

 of a finished or manufactured product from the farm, contains 

 but 27 cents' worth of fertility. Why, then, is it not the part of 

 wisdom to feed the clover hay, which contains as above noted, 

 $10.23 in fertility; alfalfa hay, $10.07; timothy hay, $5.97; corn, 

 $31.34; and oats $8.85 and convert the whole into a finished 

 product — as butter, which when sold takes away with it but 27 

 cents in fertility for each ton? Of if more desirable, why not 

 convert these crops into beef, every 100 pounds of which when 

 shipped from the farm carries away fertility to the extent of only 

 51 cents? 



