73o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
November 4 
CONDENSE OR SPREAD THE MANURE? 
SHAM, IT UK THIN OR THICK? 
What is Safe Manure Feeding? 
Following is a letter and clipping from Prof. 1. P. 
Roberts. I saw the article and wrote him about it. 
If he is right a great many farme'S are wasting man¬ 
ure. My practice is to put 25 loads on an acre, plant 
earn, sow to peas and oats, seed with clover, mow one 
season and repeat, making a three-year rotation for 
the improvement of the land. Can I do better by 
putting less on the land and covering a larger area ? 
Would it not be hard work to apply five loads to the 
acre so that one crop could convert it all into corn ? 
My land is a common hillside not rich, productive 
land Now, is the common practice of applying manure 
all wrong ? It does not seem to me that I could apply 
five loads of mauu'e on an acre without a manure 
spreader so that a crop could assimilate it all. If 
Prof. Roberts is correct, how about Mr. Lewis with 
his chemicals and clover and lots of others ? If 
Prof Roberts is correct, I think Mr. Terry is on the 
right track. His clover i3 spread very evenly in good 
shape for the potatoes to get hold of it. I have won¬ 
dered how long it would be before some of the chunks 
of manure I plowed under would be used up. 
D C. SIMPSON. 
Professor Roberts, of Cornell University, said, In speaklnK of crow¬ 
ing fodder corn: “ Twenty tons of manure are too much for an acre 
of land. Five tons are enough. I would just as soon think of putting 
live bushels of oats Into a horse’s manger at one time as 20 tons on an 
acre.” 
The inclosed clipping is correct. If you will think 
a moment, you will see how expensive it would be to 
put 20 tons of manure on an acre, provided you valued 
manure at what it is really supposed to be worth. The 
manure produced here, when analyzed, shows a value 
of about $3 per ton. Twenty tons of this per acre 
would make the cost of fertilizing land by farm ma¬ 
nures too expensive. More than that, the plant can¬ 
not take up, nor does it want, all the plant food con¬ 
tained in that much manure. You would do better to 
spread it thinly over the entire farm every year than 
to put on so much at one time as to be wasteful. 
I. P. ROBERTS. 
Additional Argument from Professor Roberts. 
Shall a small portion of the farm be manured very 
liberally each year, and then receive nothing for sev¬ 
eral years, or shall the manure made on the farm be 
scattered less liberally over a larger area ? These ques¬ 
tions present themselves to every thinking farmer, 
and very often he has little data from which to judge 
correctly. 
Manure may be of a varying quality, and a load of 
varying quantity, so that frequently in talking of 
“farm manure” and “loads,” we are no more accu 
rate than was the boy when he observed that he had 
“ quite a little lumps of chalks in his pockets.” Plants 
take up only about so much of the mineral matter 
in the soil no matter how much is present. With the 
exception of nitrogen, the residuum of plant food left 
in the soil after the crop has been removed is not 
wasted to any very considerable extent. Some ni¬ 
trogen may be wasted if growing plants are not pres¬ 
ent, but nature is very kind and holds on to the plant 
food with a very firm grasp ; so firm, indeed, that it 
requires considerable physical and mental effort to 
set this plant food free in sufficient quantities for 
large yields of crops. Though the manure may not 
be wasted, it would seem bad policy to add to the soil 
plant food which will not be needed for several years. 
From a large number of investigations conducted at 
Cornell University, the following averages are de¬ 
duced as to quality and value of manure produced by 
sheep, horses, pigs and cows. 
MIXED MANURE. 
Nitrogen. Phos. acid. Potash. 
One ton. 12.14 5. 13.96 
Five tons. 60.7 25. 69.8 
The official valuation of the above is 15, 6 and 4% 
cents per pound respectively, which gives a total value 
for the five tons of $13.74, or $2.55 per ton. It should 
be observed that the official valuations of the three 
fertilizing substances named are somewhat lower than 
formerly, and hence the value per ton is rated lower 
than when our previous investigations in manures 
were published. 
COMPOSITION OF WHEAT AND STRAW. 
Nitrogen. Phos. acid. Potash. 
Pounds. Pounds. Pounds. 
Wheat, 25 bushels contains ... 21.2 11.85 7.95 
Straw, 3,000 pounds, contains.. 19.2 6.6 18 9 
Total. 40.4 18.45 26.85 
If the amount in the wheat of the three substances 
named be taken from the amount found in five tons of 
manure we find the following surplus : 
Nitrogen. Phosphoric acid. Potash. 
Pounds. Pounds. Pounds. 
Manure. GO.7 25.00 G9.8 
Wheat and straw. 40.4 18.42 2G.85 
Surplus. 20.3 6.58 42.95 
It is not supposed that all of the plant food con¬ 
tained in the manure, would be soluble, even though 
the manure had been well cared for, and fine and 
partially rotted before it was applied. But it would 
seem that if one-half of the plant food contained in 
the farm manures was available, we might confidently 
count on the soil furnishing the other one-half ; espe¬ 
cially on good lands where we know good crops of 
wheat could be raised, if the culture is superior, with¬ 
out any addition of manure or fertilizers. 
The question arises, shall large amounts of manure 
be put in or upon the soil and left there for a number 
of years, wasting always a little, and in some cases 
doing positive injury to the crop raised, or shall a 
small amount of manure be spread over many acres ; 
thus avoiding the danger of lodged crops, waste and 
the more serious loss of starved plants on the acres re¬ 
ceiving no plant food whatever ? In the figures given 
above I have not taken those which show a very high 
value to farm manures, but have tried to keep the 
value at the minimum. If 20 tons of the manure men¬ 
tioned above be applied to an acre the analyzed value 
Bran Bin and Chute. Fig. 236. 
would be $54.96, and the amount of plant food fur¬ 
nished per acre would be as follows : 303 5 pounds of 
nitrogen ; 100 pounds of phosphoric acid and 279.2 
pounds of potash, or 7% times as much nitrogen, five 
times as much phosphoric acid and 10 times as much 
potash as the 25 bushels of wheat require. We are 
positive that it does pay us to spread manure thinly, 
Starch Feed Bin. Fig. 237 
For Description of Bins see page 732 
often over the whole farm, or so much of it as the 
manure on hand will justify. 
You ask if I remember of an instance where too 
much manure was put on any crop? I not only re 
member an instance but very many of them. It is no 
uncommon thing to see wheat and oats badly lodged 
on account of too much farm manure. This is also 
true of the clover crop, and it should be remembered, 
when we apply farm manures to the land, that they 
are high in nitrogen as compared with their mineral 
matter and that commercial fertilizers containing 
phosphoric acid and potash—but no nitrogen—should 
be used in connection with well preserved farm man¬ 
ures in order to give the most satisfactory results. I 
repeat again what I have said so often, namely, that 
for ordinary crops such as wheat, corn, oats, barley 
and the like, a heavy dressing of manure is notrnly 
wasteful, but often positively injurious, as it also may 
be to potatoes, beets and carrots. 
I append a few quotations from my lecture before 
my class on “Wheat Culture” as they have a bearing 
on this subject. Plants should have a sufficient amount 
of nitrogen when young so that a healthy, rapid and 
strong growth can be made ; but a large amount of 
available nitrogen in the soil when the plant is fruit¬ 
ing is often very injurious. 
The most successful farmers believe that it is best 
to plow clover lands soon after the hay has been cut 
and before the second crop has made its full growth 
in order that an abundance of time may be given for 
fitting the land, rather than to defer the time of plow¬ 
ing in order to get the greatest amount of growth of 
the clover. In other words, they prefer a little less 
plant food with the best of physical conditions rather 
than a little more and somewhat imperfect culture. 
There is a’ways danger that the grain will lo^ge 
and be attacked by mildew and rust if a large amount 
of rich manures is applied, because the plant is likely 
to be surfeited with nitrogen. Five or ten loads of 
weather-beaten manure such as is usually applied, or 
five tons of half-rotted and well preserved manure per 
acre is quite sufficient to secure the-most economical 
results, if the land has been properly prepared and 
especially if these manures are used in connection 
with a small amount of commercial fertilizers. Farm 
manures usually do not act quick enough and usually 
are not well balanced, containing as they do, relatively 
too much nitrogen; therefore it is economy in most 
cases to use some mineral manures in connection with 
them. i. p. Roberts. 
Put the Manure on Heavily. 
According to my experience, it pays better to put 
manure on heavily rather than to spread it thinly over 
the whole farm, and I am surprised that Prof. Roberts 
should give such advice. Five tons of manure per acre 
is too light an application to make any money on the 
average acre. And his advice to “ spread it (the ma¬ 
nure) thinly over the whole farm every year ” would, 
if followed by the great majority of farmers, result in 
loss. The Professor’s comparison of oats in a horse’s 
manger with manure in a field is not a just one ; the 
horse might injure himself by overeating, the plant 
would not. It won’t do to spread manure according 
to its chemical worth in dollars and say that we can’t 
afford to put $60 worth of manure on an acre of ground 
that may not be worth—in the market—$50. In spread¬ 
ing manure, we must consider the requirements of the 
crop. If it requires 20 tons per acre, then we must 
put it on, else we won’t get a full crop. If 10 tons will 
make a half crop, then it is applied at a loss, be¬ 
cause half crops do not pay. In feeding oats to a 
horse that we are working, we don’t measure the oats 
by their dollar value, but by their work value ; we 
feed enough so that the horse can do a full day’s work. 
And why shouldn’t we ? If the horse’s work won’t 
pay for the oats, then there is something wrong with 
the horse, the oats, or the kind of work. If the horse 
has not been doing hard work, and he has a lot of hay 
and corn fodder in his feed rack, then a light feed of 
oats will enable him to do a full day’s work. Like¬ 
wise, if an acre is rich—has a lot of ammonia, phos¬ 
phoric acid and potash on hand—then five tons of 
manure spread evenly over it may be all that is neces¬ 
sary to make a full crop. 
But we farmers, as a rule, are not manuring acres 
that are rich. Five tons of manure to the acre ! One 
ton spread over 8,712 square feet! And that 2,000 
pounds, mostly water, is expected to fertilize from 
five to six inches of soil depth ! My manure spreader 
(Kemp’s) will spread so few as four 40-bushel loads per 
acre, but I have never dared to spread at that rate ex¬ 
cept for lime. I don’t remember an instance where I 
have put too much manure on any crop ; I do remem¬ 
ber many instances where I have put too little on. My 
almost invariable experience is that the more manure, 
the better the crop. If I should spread the manure 
thinly over the entire farm every year, I don’t believe 
I would ever notice the slightest effect from it; and I 
think that would be the experience of every farmer 
unless he was heavily overstocked, that is, was keep¬ 
ing more stock than the farm would feed. Prof. Rob¬ 
erts says : “The manure produced here (at the sta¬ 
tion), when analyzed, shows a value of about $3 per 
ton.” That is its true value, chemically, according to 
the market price of its manurial elements. What is its 
farm value ? It won’t do to calculate 20 tons of ma- 
mure as being worth $60 and say that we can’t afford 
to spread it on an acre because of its dollar value as 
determined Qhemically ; neither will it do to say that 
