Convention— utilization of wastes. 
217 
of machinery, and waste in the expenditure of money. All of these 
might be considered, and each would furnish food for thought and 
advice. I shall confine myself to the proper use of straw and fod¬ 
der to secure the greatest amount of benefit; also waste of animal 
vitality. 
Straw is generally considered as an incumbrance to be rid of in 
the cheapest and most expeditious manner. Usually by burning 
or by piling it up in the field when it is threshed, an unsightly ex¬ 
crescence upon the field, and suffered to remain for years to dry up 
and blow away, furnishing a nest for vermin and insects to breed 
in for the destruction of the grain of the succeeding season, such 
as the chinch bug and the army worm. 
Frequently a pile of straw from which 400 or 500 bushels of 
wheat have been threshed, if left there, will not make one good 
load of manure — all of the ammoniacal substance is evaporated 
and blown away, and what remains is little better than chips for 
manure; a most terribly mistaken idea, equaled only in folly by 
the burning, and I am not sure but the burning is the best economy. 
Yes, I am sure it is; for it cleans the land and destroys the weed 
seeds that may be left in the straw. “Well,” says some farmer, 
perhaps, “ what will you do with so much straw? It fills my barn¬ 
yard full in one year. I cannot make it into manure, and can only 
use what my cattle eat.” And yet those very farmers are complain¬ 
ing of poor crops and hard times. 
Well, my farmer friends, your economy is as hard as your com¬ 
plaint is loud and long; and some of you ought to be sent to the 
insane asylum, or to a school of economy to work, or educate some 
of the slovenly ways out of you. I know 
THIS IS PLAIN TALK, 
But you, the farmers of the northwest, deserve it. Your lands that 
formerly yielded from twenty to thirty bushels of wheat per acre, 
now do nothing more than barely pay the expenses of raising, and 
in many instances not half that, and still you are continuing in the 
same old course. 
Farmers, if I could say anything to induce you to get off Po¬ 
verty’s Hill, or out of the Valley of Despondency, and arouse in the 
great public farming mind a better condition of things my object 
would be gained. 
