TALKS ON MANURES A SERIES OF FAMILIAR AND PRACTICAL TALKS BETWEEN THE AUTHOR AND THE DEACON, THE DOCTOR, AND OTHER NEIGHBORS, ON THE WHOLE SUBJECT TEXT

straw as a rule; but, if you have more than you can use to advantage, and it is bringing a good price, sell part of the straw and buy bran, oil-cake, etc., with the money. To feed nothing but straw to stock is poor economy; and to rot it down for manure is no better. Straw itself is not worth $3.00 a ton for manure; and as one ton of straw, spread in an open yard to rot, will make, in spring, about four tons of so-called manure, and if it costs 50 cents a ton to draw out and spread it, the straw, even at this comparatively high estimate of its value, nets you, when fed out alone, or rotted down, only $1.00 a ton. I had about 30 tons of straw. Fed out alone or rotted down it would make 120 tons of manure. After deducting the expense of hauling, and spreading, it nets me on the land, $30. Now sell half the straw for $150, and buy three tons of oil-cake to feed out with the other half, and you would have about seventy tons of manure. The manure from the fifteen tons of straw is worth, say $45, and from the three tons of oil-cake, $60, or $105. It will cost $35 to draw and spread it, and will thus net on the land, $70. So far as the manure question is concerned, therefore, it is far better to sell half your straw, and buy oil-cake with the money, than to feed it out alone--and I think it is also far better for the stock. Of course, it would be better for the farm, not to sell any of the straw, and to buy six tons of oil-cake to feed out with it; but those of us who are short of capital, must be content to bring up our land by slow degrees. “I am at a loss to understand,” wrote Mr. Geddes, “what you mean, when you say that a ton of straw will make, in the spring of the year, four tons of so-called manure. If you had said that four tons of straw would make one ton of manure, I should have thought nothing of it. But how you can turn one ton of straw into four tons of anything that anybody will call manure, I do not see. In a conversation I had with Hon. Lewis F. Allen, of Black Rock, more than a year ago, he told me that he had enquired of the man who furnished hay for feeding cattle at the Central Yards, in Buffalo, as to the loads of manure he sold, and though I can not now say the exact quantity to a ton of hay, I remember that it was very little--far less than I had before supposed. Please explain this straw-manure matter.” Boussingault, the great French chemist-farmer, repeatedly analyzed the manure from his barn-yard. “The animals which had produced this dung, were 30 horses, 30 oxen, and from 10 to 20 pigs. The absolute quantity of moisture was ascertained, by first drying in the air a considerable weight of dung, and after pounding, continuing and completing, the drying of a given quantity.” No one can doubt the accuracy of the results. The dung made in the Winter of 1837-8, contained 79.6 per cent of water. ” ” 1838-9, ” 77.8 ” ” ” ” Autumn ” 1839, ” 80.4 ” ” ” ” Fresh solid cow-dung contains, according to the same authority, 90 per cent of water. I have frequently seen manure drawn out in the spring, that had not been decomposed at all, and with more or less snow among it, and with water dripping from the wagon, while it was being loaded. It was, in fact, straw saturated with water, and discolored by the droppings of animals. Now, how much of such manure would a ton of dry straw make? If we should take 20 lbs. of straw, trample it down, and from time to time sprinkle it with water and snow, until we had got on 80 lbs., and then put on 20 lbs. more straw, and 80 lbs. more water, and keep on until we had used up a ton of straw, how much “so-called manure,” should we have to draw out? 2,000 lbs. of straw, and 8,000 lbs. water = 10,000 lbs. so-called manure. In other words, we get five tons of such manure from one ton of straw. This is, perhaps, an extreme case, but there can be little doubt, that a ton of straw, trampled down by cattle, and sheep, in an open barn-yard, exposed to snow and rain, would weigh four tons when drawn out wet in the spring. Yes, it is quite an argument in favor of manure cellars. I have always had a prejudice against them--probably, because the first one I saw was badly managed. There is, however, no necessity, even in an ordinary open barn-yard, with more or less sheds and stables, of having so much water in the manure when drawn out. The real point of my remarks, which so surprised Mr. Geddes, was this: We have to draw out so much water with our manure, under any circumstances, that we should try to have it as rich as possible. It is certainly true, that, _if_ the manure from a ton of straw is worth $3, that from a ton of clover-hay, is worth $10. And it costs no more to draw out and spread the one than the other. I have never yet found a farmer who would believe that a ton of clover-hay, rotted down in the barn-yard, would make three or four tons of manure; but he would readily assent to the proposition, that it took four or five tons of green clover to make a ton of hay; and that if these four or five tons of green-clover were rotted in the yard, it would make three or four tons of manure. And yet, the only difference between the green-clover and the hay, is, that the latter has lost some 60 or 70 per cent of water in curing. Add that amount of water to the hay, and it will make as much manure as the green-clover from which the hay was made. GYPSUM AND CLOVER AS MANURE. A good farmer came in while we were talking. “Nothing like plaster and clover,” he said, “for keeping up a wheat-farm.” And you will find this the general opinion of nearly all American wheat-growers. It must be accepted as a fact. But the deductions drawn from the fact are as various as they are numerous. Let us look first at the fact. And, if you like, we will take my own farm as an example. About 60 years ago, it was covered with the primeval forest. The trees, on the higher and drier land, were first cut down, and many of them burnt on the land. Wheat was sown among the stumps. The crop varied in different years, from 10 to 30 bushels per acre. When 30 bushels were grown, the fact was remembered. When 10 bushels only were grown, little was said about it in after years, until now there is a general impression that our wheat crops were formerly much larger per acre than now. I doubt it; but we will not discuss the point. One thing is certain, the land would produce good crops of clover; and when this clover was plowed under for manure, we got better crops of wheat afterwards. This was the rule. Later, we commenced to use gypsum as a top-dressing on clover. The effect was often wonderful. Farmers will tell you that they sowed 200 lbs. of plaster per acre, on their young clover, in the spring, and it _doubled the crop_. This statement expresses an agricultural, and not an arithmetical fact. We do not know that the crop on the plastered portion was twice as heavy as on the unplastered. We know that it was larger, and more luxuriant. There was a greater, and more vigorous growth. And this extra growth was caused by the small top-dressing of powdered gypsum rock. It was a great fact in agriculture. I will call it fact, No. 1. Then, when the clover was turned under, we usually got good wheat. This is fact, No. 2. On these two facts, hang many of our agricultural theories. We may state these facts in many ways. Still, it all comes to this: Clover is good for wheat; plaster is good for clover. There is another fact, which is a matter of general observation and remark. You rarely find a good farmer who does not pay special attention to his clover-crop. When I was riding with Mr. Geddes, among the farmers of Onondaga County, on passing a farm where everything looked thrifty--good fences, good buildings, good garden, good stock, and the land clean and in good condition--I would ask who lived there, or some other question. No matter what. The answer was always the same. “Oh! he is another of our clover men.” We will call this fact, No. 3. And when, a year afterwards, Mr. Geddes returned my visit, and I drove him around among the farmers of Monroe County, he found precisely the same state of facts. All our good farmers were clover men. Among the good wheat-growers in Michigan, you will find the same state of things. These are the facts. Let us not quarrel over them. CHAPTER XXIV. THE CHEAPEST MANURE A FARMER CAN USE. I do not know who first said, “The cheapest manure a farmer can use is--clover-seed,” but the saying has become part of our agricultural literature, and deserves a passing remark. I have heard good farmers in Western New York say, that if they had a field sown with wheat that they were going to plow the spring after the crop was harvested, they would sow 10 lbs. of clover-seed on the wheat in the spring. They thought that the growth of the clover in the fall, after the wheat was cut, and the growth the next spring, before the land was plowed, would afford manure worth much more than the cost of the clover-seed. “I do not doubt it,” said the Deacon; “but would it not be better to let the crop grow a few months longer, and then plow it under?” “But that is not the point,” I remarked; “we sometimes adopt a rotation when Indian-corn follows a crop of wheat. In such a case, good farmers sometimes plow the land in the fall, and again the next spring, and then plant corn. This is one method. But I have known, as I said before, good farmers to seed down the wheat with clover; and the following spring, say the third week in May, plow under the young clover, and plant immediately on the furrow. If the land is warm, and in good condition, you will frequently get clover, by this time, a foot high, and will have two or three tons of succulent vegetation to turn under; and the farmer who first recommended the practice to me, said that the cut-worms were so fond of this green-clover that they did not molest the young corn-plants. I once tried the plan myself, and found it to work well; but since then, I have kept so many pigs and sheep, that clover has been too useful to plow under. But we will not discuss this point at present. “What I wanted to say is this: Here we have a field in wheat. Half of it (A) we seed down with 12 lbs. of clover-seed per acre; the other half (B) not. The clover-seed and sowing on A, cost, say, $2 per acre. We plow B in the fall; this will cost us about as much as the clover seed sown on A. In the spring, A and B are both plowed and planted to corn. Now, which half of the field will be in the cleanest and best condition, and which will produce the best corn, and the best barley, or oats, afterwards?” “I vote for A,” said the Deacon. “I vote for A,” said the Doctor. “I vote for A,” said the Squire. “I should think,” modestly suggested Charley, “that it would depend somewhat on the soil,” and Charley is right. On a clean, moderately rich piece of light, sandy soil, I should certainly expect much better corn, and better barley or oats, on A, where the clover was grown, than on B. But if the field was a strong loam, that needed thorough cultivation to get it mellow enough for corn, I am inclined to think that B would come out ahead. At any rate, I am sure that on my own farm, moderately stiff land, if I was going to plant corn after wheat, I should _not_ seed it down with clover. I would plow the wheat stubble immediately after harvest, and harrow and cultivate it to kill the weeds, and then, six weeks or two months later, I would plow it again. I would draw out manure in the winter, pile it up in the field to ferment, and the next spring spread it, and plow it under, and then-- “And then what?” asked the Deacon. --“Why the truth is,” said I, “then I would not plant corn at all. I should either sow the field to barley, or drill in mangel-wurzel or Swede-turnips. But if I _did_ plant corn, I should expect better corn than if I had sown clover with the wheat; and the land, if the corn was well cultivated, would be remarkably clean, and in fine condition; and the next time the land was seeded down with clover, we could reasonably expect a great crop.” The truth is, that clover-seed is sometimes a very cheap manure, and farmers are in no danger of sowing too much of it. I do not mean sowing too much seed per acre, but they are in no danger of sowing too many acres with clover. On this point, there is no difference of opinion. It is only when we come to explain the action of clover--when we draw deductions from the facts of the case--that we enter a field bristling all over with controversy. “You have just finished threshing,” said the Deacon, “and for my part, I would rather hear how your wheat turned out, than to listen to any of your chemical talk about nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash.” “The wheat,” said I, “turned out full as well as I expected. Fourteen acres of it was after wheat, and eight acres of it after oats. Both these fields were seeded down with clover last year, but the clover failed, and there was nothing to be done but to risk them again with wheat. The remainder was after barley. In all, there was not quite 40 acres, and we had 954 bushels of Diehl wheat. This is not bad in the circumstances; but I shall not be content until I can average, taking one year with another, 35 to 40 bushels per acre. If the land had been rich enough, there would unquestionably have been 40 bushels per acre this year. That is to say, the _season_ was quite capable of producing this amount; and I think the mechanical condition of the land was also equal to it; all that was needed was sufficient available plant-food in the soil.” “I can see no reason,” said the Doctor, “why you may not average 40 bushels of wheat per acre in a good season.” “The field of 14 acres,” said I, “where wheat followed wheat, yielded 23 bushels per acre. Last year it yielded 22 bushels per acre; and so we got in the two years 45 bushels per acre.” This field has had no manure of any kind for years. In fact, since the land was cleared, 40 or 50 years ago, I presume that all the manure that has been applied would not, in the aggregate, be equal to more than a good crop of clover-hay. The available plant-food required to produce these two crops of wheat came from the soil itself, and from the rain, dews, and atmosphere. The land is now seeded down with clover, and with the aid of a bushel or two of plaster per acre, next spring, it is not improbable that, if mown twice for hay next year, it will yield in the two crops three tons of hay per acre. Now, three tons of clover-hay contain about 33 lbs. of phosphoric acid, 90 lbs. of potash, and 150 lbs. of nitrogen. The last crop of wheat, of 22 bushels per acre, and say 1,500 lbs. of straw, would contain: In the grain. In the straw. In total crop. Phosphoric acid 11½ lbs. 3¾ lbs. 15¼ lbs. Potash 6¾ ” 9¾ ” 16½ ” Nitrogen 23 ” 9½ ” 32½ ” It seems very unkind in the wheat-plants not to give me more than 22 bushels per acre, when the clover-plants coming after will find phosphoric acid enough for 40 bushels of wheat, and potash and nitrogen enough for nearly 100 bushels of wheat per acre. And these are the three important constituents of plant-food. Why, then, did I get only 22 bushels of wheat per acre? I got 23 bushels on the same land the year previous, and it is not improbable that if I had sown the same land to wheat again this fall, I should get 12 or 15 bushels per acre again next year. But the clover will find plant-food enough for 40 bushels of wheat. “There is not much doubt,” said the Deacon, “that you will get a good crop of clover, if you will keep the sheep off of the land this fall. But I do not see what you mean by the clover-plants finding food enough for 40 bushels of wheat, while in point of fact, if you had sown the field again to wheat this fall, you would not, as you say, probably get more than 12 or 15 bushels of wheat.” “He means this,” said the Doctor. “If he had sown the land to wheat this fall, without manure, he would probably not get over 15 bushels of wheat per acre, and yet you both agree that the land will, in all probability, produce next year, if mown twice, three tons of clover-hay per acre, without any manure. “Now, if we admit that the clover gets no more nitrogen from the rain and dews, and from the atmosphere, than the wheat will get, then it follows that this soil, which will only produce 15 bushels of wheat per acre, does, in point of fact, contain plant-food enough for 40 bushels of wheat, and the usual proportion of straw. “The two crops take up from the soil as follows: Phosphoric acid. Potash. Nitrogen. 15 bushels wheat and straw 10¼ lbs. 11¼ lbs. 22 lbs. 3 tons clover-hay 33 ” 90 ” 150 ” “These facts and figures,” continued the Doctor, “are worth looking at and thinking about. Why can not the wheat get as much phosphoric acid out of the soil as the clover?” “Because,” said the Deacon, “the roots of the clover go down deeper into the subsoil than the roots of wheat.” “That is a very good reason, so far as it goes,” said I, “but does not include all the facts. I have no sort of doubt, that if I had sown this land to wheat, and put on 75 lbs. of nitrogen per acre, I should have got a wheat-crop containing, in grain and straw, 30 lbs. of phosphoric acid. And so the reason I got 15 bushels of wheat per acre, instead of 40 bushels, is not because the roots of wheat do not go deep enough to find sufficient soluble phosphoric acid.” “Possibly,” said the Doctor, “the nitrogen you apply may render the phosphoric acid in the soil more soluble.” “That is true,” said I; “and this was the answer Liebig gave to Mr. Lawes. Of which more at some future time. But this answer, like the Deacon’s, does not cover all the facts of the case; for a supply of soluble phosphoric acid would not, in all probability, give me a large crop of wheat. I will give you some facts presently bearing on this point. “What we want to find out is, why the clover can get so much more phosphoric acid, potash, and nitrogen, than the wheat, from the same soil?” MORE ABOUT CLOVER. The Deacon seemed to think the Doctor was going to give a scientific answer to the question. “If the clover _can_ get more nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, from the same soil than wheat,” said he, “why not accept the fact, and act accordingly? You scientific gentlemen want to explain everything, and sometimes make confusion worse confounded. We know that a sheep will grow fat in a pasture where a cow would starve.” “True,” said the Doctor, “and that is because the cow gathers food with her tongue, and must have the grass long enough for her to get hold of it; while a sheep picks up the grass with her teeth and gums, and, consequently, the sheep can eat the grass down into the very ground.” “Very well,” said the Deacon; “and how do you know but that the roots of the clover gather up their food sheep-fashion, while the wheat-roots eat like a cow?” “That is not a very scientific way of putting it,” said the Doctor; “but I am inclined to think the Deacon has the right idea.” “Perhaps, then,” said I, “we had better let it go at that until we get more light on the subject. We must conclude that the wheat can not get food enough from the soil to yield a maximum crop, not because there is not food enough in the field, but the roots of the wheat are so constituted that they can not gather it up; while clover-roots, foraging in the same soil, can find all they want.” “Clover,” said the Deacon, “is the scavenger of the farm; like a pig, it gathers up what would otherwise be wasted.” “Of course, these illustrations,” said the Doctor, “do not give us any