174: 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Mat, 
Horns are frightful -weapons amongst a drove 
of half-wild irritated and alarmed cattle, and so 
far as our beef stock is concerned may be very 
profitably dispensed with. There is no doubt 
but that the introduction of these hornless 
breeds, with all the other advantages they pos- 
sess, would be of benefit to our "Western aud 
much of our Eastern country. They arrive at 
an earl}' maturity, at three years old will make 
600 to 800 pounds of beef, which is well flavored, 
tender, and with fat and lean well mixed to- 
gether, and, in short, are a favorite breed with 
the feeder, drover, butcher, and consumer. 
"Walks and Talks on the Farm.— No. 101. 
I have been reading Miss Howard's transla- 
tion of Prof. Viele's lectures on chemical ma- 
nures. His fundamental idea is that by the 
use of nitrogen, phosphates, and potash we can 
dispense with ordinary barn-yard manure. 
Within certain limits this is undoubtedly true. 
But it was Lawes and Gilbert, and not Prof. 
Viele, that proved the fact. The lectures are a 
strange compound of truth and error. That 
which is true is not new, aud that which is new 
is not true — or at any rate, as the Scotch say, 
"not proven." 
These lectures, as translated by Miss Howard 
of Georgia, and published in pamphlet form, 
are having a considerable circulation in the 
Southern States. Aud, notwithstanding their 
innumerable errors and doubtful statements, 
they are well calculated to attract attention to 
the advantages of using artificial fertilizers, and 
thus do much good. 
Throughout the whole length and breadth of 
the large area known as the Atlantic slope, arti- 
ficial manures, if of good quality and sold at a 
reasonable price, might be used to an enormous 
extent with great benefit to the individual far- 
mers aniVplanters and to the commercial inter- 
ests of the country. If my memory serves me, 
as much as 145,000 tons of guano was used in 
a single year, and principally in the Southern 
States, before the war. Since then, Peruvian 
guano has deteriorated greatly, and what is even 
worse, it varies very much in quality, some car- 
goes being worth nearly twice as much per ton 
as others, while, as I understand, it is all sold 
by the Peruvian agent at the same price. . 
Our manufactured fertilizers, as a rule, are 
even still more unsatisfactory. A few are good, 
many are inferior, and some are not worth the 
freight. Prof. S. W. Johnson has done a noble 
work in determining the value of many of our 
commercial manures. In his last report on the 
subject, be has placed a higher value on the dif- 
ferent ingredients of manure than formerly, and 
the manufacturers whose manures will not 
stand the test of such an estimate should know 
that there is something wrong in their processes. 
Aud there is one point that they should under- 
stand. This method of estimating the value of 
manures can not do the manufacturers injustice, 
but it may mislead the farmer. The manure 
can not be worth more than the ingredients it 
contains indicate ; but it may be worth less, be- 
cause some of the ingredients may be in an un- 
available condition. For instance, a mixture of 
leather, hair, wool, and ground undissolved 
Charleston phosphates would not be worth 
half what the analysis indicates. The nitrogen 
and phosphoric acid are there, but in such an 
unavailable condition that the manure would 
have comparatively little effect on the crop to 
which it was applied. The analysis, therefore, 
ma}' represent the manure as more valuable than 
it is ; but a manure is never more valuable than 
the analysis indicates. 
Prof. Johnson, after a very careful considera- 
tion of the whole subject, estimates the values 
of the ingredients of manures as follows : 
Potash 7 cents per lb. 
Nitrogen 30 " " 
Soluble phosphoric acid 10 l 4 " " 
Insoluble " " 6 " " 
The Manhattan Manufacturing and Fertiliz- 
ing Company, whose manures I have consider- 
able faith in, send me an analysis of their Phos- 
phatic Blood Manure, made by Prof. S. W. 
Johnson. It contains: 
Per cent. Value per ton. 
Water 21 .40 
Soluble phosphoric acid 5.66 $18.39 
Insoluble " " 8.03 9.03 
Potash 1.40 1.06 
Soda 2.60 
Nitrogen 3.32 19.92 
Value per ton of 2,000 lbs $49.90 
111 the present condition of the artificial ma- 
nure market, this is not a bad showing. The 
manure is not as good as it should be — not as 
good as the ingredients used in its manufacture 
are capable of producing. The fact is, it is not 
an easy matter to decompose bone-dust, and if 
I were the manufacturers I should employ 
mineral phosphates instead. I know there is 
an unfounded prejudice against them, but the 
soluble phosphoric acid obtained from them is 
just as valuable as that obtained from bones. 
But can we afford to use artificial manures at 
these prices? On poor, sandy land, aud where 
the products can be sent to the cities on the At- 
lantic coast, I think we can. And even here in 
the interior the market-gardener, seed-grower, 
and nurseryman may sometimes use them with 
considerable profit. Even farmers in the inte- 
rior, on poor, sandy land, may use them for the 
purpose of " getting a start," but not as a steady 
thing. We can do better — at least I think so — 
by making more manure on our own farms. 
Taking Prof. Johnson's figures, the potash, 
phosphoric acid, and nitrogen in a ton of clover 
hay wouid make it worth $17.57 for manure. 
Bran would be worth $22.10; peas, $22.84; 
malt-dust ("combs"), $31.30; linseed oil-cake, 
$33.76, and decorticated cotton-seed cake, $47.56 
per ton for manure. 
When fed to animals, there is a loss of about 
five per cent of nitrogen and a very insiguificaut 
amount of potash and phosphoric acid. If we 
deduct five per cent from the above figures, it 
will be safe to assume that they represent the 
value of the manure made by an animal con- 
suming a ton of the foods named, as compared 
with the theoretical value of artificial manures. 
On the same basis, a ton of ordinary barn-yard 
manure would be worth $3.25. 
To a farmer who buys as much bran aud 
other food to feed to sheep and pigs as I do, 
there must be encouragement in the above fig- 
ures. I think they are too high, but it seems 
that artificial manures can not be obtained in 
this country at a cheaper rate. And if our 
Eastern and Southern friends can afford to buy 
these manures we certainly ought to be able to 
make considerable profit from feeding stock and 
making manure on our farms. 
A Pennsylvania farmer writes: "During the 
winter I have been looking over old files of the 
American Agriculturist" which is certainly a 
very sensible thing to do. " You seem in Walks 
aud Talks," he says, " to hold out the idea that 
summer-fallow and thorough cultivation will 
exterminate the weeds. Do you really believe 
it?" I believe that weeds do not spring spon- 
taneously from the earth. They are produced 
from roots and seeds. If we could kill all the 
roots, and get all the seeds to germinate and 
then kill the plants, the soil would then be free 
from weeds. This is a simple truism. But I 
do not believe that there is any practicable 
method of making a soil absolutely free from 
weeds. I think it is possible to cause all the 
weeds to germinate in say eight inches of the 
surface soil ; but if when this was attained the 
plow should run half an inch deeper, we should 
probably the next season have a plentiful crop 
of weeds. Let these go to seed, and relax all 
efforts to kill the plants for a few years, and the 
land would soon be overrun with weeds. But 
what of all this? The only sensible plan for a 
farmer to adopt is to fight the weeds, and keep 
fighting them. 
In England, where most of the land is rented, 
it is a great question how much the landlord 
or in-coming tenant shall pay the out-going 
tenant for unexhausted improvements. Mr. 
Lawes, in one of the ablest papers ever. written 
on an agricultural subject, advocates allowing 
the tenant farmer a greater liberty in regard to 
the kind of crops he may raise than is common 
in most leases. But he says: "The tenant 
should be required to keep the land free from 
weeds; aud, in default, to pay compensation to 
the landlord or in-coming tenant for the cost of 
cleaning ; such cost to be assessed by competent 
persons." And he adds: "The cost of cleaning 
foul land which is in high condition is much 
greater lhau that of putting land which is poor 
in condition, but free from weeds, iuto good 
condition." 
This is emphatically true, as I have found to 
my cost. I have had a hard fight with the 
weeds, but am steadily getting the upper hand 
of them. I feel savage on the subject, and have 
little patience with a farmer who looks upon a 
weed as something to be checked or kept back 
for the time being, and not killed. 
"You say in March Walks and Talks," 
writes a young farmer at Cassville, Wis., " that 
soiling in summer and steaming in winter would 
enable me to keep more stock, but I have always 
contended it is the food and not the stock that 
makes the manure. From that we are to un- 
derstand that the ultimate end and aim of farm- 
ing is the manufacture of manure." This is 
pretty much so. It is quite certain that where 
manure is not one of the principal objects of 
feeding, soiling and steaming will not pay. In 
a section where land is cheap and rich, and 
where feed is abundant and manure is little 
needed, the mere saving of food will not pay 
for the labor of soiling and steaming. It is 
only where land is high and feed expensive that 
there is any chance of profitably adopting these 
processes. And on such laud aud in such cir- 
cumstances manure is a great object. All I in- 
tended to show by my remark (and I must ad- 
mit that it was rather an unfortunate one) was 
that even admitting that you could keep one 
third more stock on the same food you would 
not make one third more profit, less the expense 
of steaming, because you would not make any 
more manure. I buy a good deal of bran and 
grain to feed out on my farm, and I should 
think I was doing well if the stock would pay 
me the market price of the food that I raise and 
that which I buy, and leave me the manure for 
profit. Ordinary farm stock will not do this. 
But I have not time now to discuss this matter 
