38 



TWENTY- EIGHTH FRUIT-GROWERS* CONVENTION. 



izers by paying out our hard-earned dollars, but by our methods of 

 clean culture we are burning out our soils. We must have humus, and 

 to supply humus together with plant food, there is nothing so beneficial 

 to the soil as animal manure, and there is no machine so good for 

 making manure as the cow. There is this peculiarity about the alfalfa 

 plant, that it draws most of its nourishment in the form of nitrogen 

 from the atmosphere. What it does not get from the atmosphere it 

 goes down deep into the earth for, and will grow year after year on the 

 same soil without need of fertilizer and without apparently leaving the 

 soil any worse off. In fact, the top soil at least is greatly enriched by 

 cropping to alfalfa. This crop forms the most perfect single cow feed 

 known to man, and the beauty of it is that after making enough milk to 

 pay a handsome profit on its cost, a cow returns to us 80 per cent of its 

 nutriment in the form of manure. I estimate, from generally accepted 

 feeding tables, that the value of the fertilizing elements in the manure 

 from a ton of alfalfa hay is about $8 or $9. It is probable that it would 

 pay to buy alfalfa hay at $6 per ton and plow it under in our orchards; 

 but how much better a proposition it is to have our cows work it into 

 manure while making a good profit from it in the form of milk and 

 butter. The same principle holds good regarding other feedstuffs that 

 can be used to supplement alfalfa. The manurial value of a ton of bran 

 after passing through the cow is about $12 per ton, and if the milk pro- 

 duced from the bran will pay a profit on its cost, the manure, when 

 properly cared for, is a very cheap fertilizer to the man who has an 

 orchard to put it on. If a machine should be invented which would 

 draw down nitrogen from the sky, like cucumbers from sunbeams, and 

 would draw up potash and phosphoric acid from the depths of the earth 

 and combine them with humus in readily available form, every fruit- 

 grower would want to buy such a machine; especially if it turned out 

 gold dollars as well as manure. 



This is just what the alfalfa plant, in connection with a good dairy 

 herd, will do, and such being the case, there can be no doubt that alfalfa 

 and dairying in connection with fruit-growing should receive more 

 attention. It is not to be hoped that every orchardist will be able to 

 keep a herd of cows, but even if every fruit-grower who now buys milk 

 and butter would keep a family cow, and those who now keep one cow 

 would keep two, this increase, small as it seems, would add thousands 

 of dollars to our wealth, and fertilize thousands of acres that are now 

 going backward. 



No doubt the objection is made by many that the care of cows entails 

 too much work. It does take work, steady and faithful work; but it is 

 a work that pays, a work that saves, the kind of w T ork that gets the 

 most out of the soil and builds up stable wealth and prosperity. To 

 these objectors I say, as you raise more cows, raise more boys to milk 



