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

think that the loss of nitrogen would be equal to, or possibly exceed, the amount of that substance removed by the average crops grown in the United States. The results obtained by the rain gauges, are further completely confirmed by those in an adjoining field, where wheat and fallow have been grown alternately for twenty-seven years. The liberation of nitric acid, during the year of rest, produced for a time a large growth of wheat, but it was done at a very great waste of the fertility of the soil, and the produce is now, in proportion, considerably lower than that grown on the continuously unmanured land. These results, if they are to be accepted as correct, must bring about a very considerable change in the generally received views in regard to fertility. We not only see more clearly the connection between a former vegetation and the stored up fertility in our soil, but we also see the importance of vegetation at the present day, as the only means by which the loss of nitric acid is prevented. The more completely the land is covered with vegetation, and the more growth there is, the greater will be the evaporation of water, and the less will be the loss of nitric acid by drainage. I was not at all surprised to find, that the surface soil of a wood on my farm, was poorer in nitrogen than the soil of an old permanent pasture, to which no manure had been applied for twenty-five years, though during the whole period, the crop of hay had been removed every year from the land. The wood to which I refer is covered with oak, centuries old, and the foliage is so dense that but little underwood or other vegetation can grow beneath it. If both the wood and the pasture were put into arable cultivation, I have no doubt that the pasture would prove much more fertile than the wood land. In our experiments on permanent pasture, it has been observed that the character of the herbage is mainly dependent on the food supplied. Weeds, and inferior grasses, can hold their own as long as poverty exists, but with a liberal supply of manure, the superior grasses overgrow and drive out the bad grasses and weeds. In consequence of the low price of wheat a good deal of land in England has been laid down to permanent pasture, and much money has been spent in cleaning the land preparatory to sowing the grass-seeds. I have on more occasions than one, suggested that the money employed in this process would be better expended in manure, by which the weeds would be “improved” off the face of the land. While walking over the abandoned portion of these estates I explained my views upon this point to the manager. They were, however, received with the usual skepticism, and the rejoinder that “there was only one way of getting rid of the weeds, which was by the plow and fire.” There is nothing that speaks to me so forcibly as color in vegetation; when travelling by rail, I do not require to be told that such a farm is, or is not, in high condition, or that we are passing through a fertile or infertile district. There is a peculiar green color in vegetation which is an unmistakable sign that it is living upon the fat of the land. I need hardly say that, in this case, the color of the vegetation gave unmistakable signs of the poverty of the soil; but in the midst of the dingy yellowish-green of the herbage, I came upon one square of bright green grass. In answer to my enquiry I was told that, a “lambing-fold had been there last year,” and my informant added his opinion, “that the manure would be so strong that it would kill anything!” It had certainly killed the weeds, but in their place, some good grasses had taken possession of the soil. The plan I proposed to adopt was, to spend no more money on tillage operations, but to endeavor to improve the pasture by giving to it the food necessary to grow good grasses, sowing at the same time a small quantity of the best seeds. I further suggested that a flock of sheep should be allowed to run over the whole of the land by day, and be folded there every night--about one pound of cotton-seed cake per head being allowed daily. By this means, as the fold would be moved every day, the amount of manure deposited on the soil could be estimated. If there were a hundred sheep, receiving one pound of decorticated cotton-seed cake per head, daily, and the hurdles were arranged to enclose a space of twenty-five by twenty yards, in the course of ten days an acre of land would have received manure from one thousand pounds of cake; which amount would supply seventy-seven pounds of nitrogen, sixty-eight pounds of phosphate of lime, and thirty-two pounds of potash. This amount of cake would cost about sixteen dollars. As regards the value of the cake as a food, it is somewhat difficult to form an estimate; but it takes nine or ten pounds of dry food--say roots, cake, and hay--to produce an increase of one pound of live weight in sheep. The cake has certainly a higher feeding value, than either hay or roots, but I will here give it only the same value, and consider that one hundred and ten pounds of increase of the animal was obtained by the consumption of the one thousand pounds of cake. The value of the increase of the live weight would be in England fully eleven dollars, leaving five dollars as the cost of the manure. Now the cake furnished seventy-seven pounds of nitrogen alone, which, if purchased in an artificial manure, would have cost nineteen dollars; and the other substances supplied by the cake, would have cost from four to five dollars more. The manures required, therefore, would be obtained much more cheaply by this than by any other process. Labor would be saved by not cultivating the land. Manure would be saved by substituting vegetation which grows under or above ground, almost all the year round. And, by feeding the stock with cake, the necessary fertility would be obtained at the lowest possible cost. It is probable that the land would require this treatment to be repeated for several years, before there would be a fair growth of grass. The land might then be broken up and one grain crop be taken, then it might again be laid down to grass. Hitherto, I have considered a case where fertility is almost absent from the land, this, however, is an exception, as agriculture generally is carried on upon soils which contain large stores of fertility, though they may be very unequally distributed. By analysis of the soil we can measure the total amount of fertility which it contains, but we are left in ignorance in regard to the amount of the ingredients which are in such a form that the crops we cultivate can make use of them. At Rothamsted, among my experiments on the growth of continuous wheat, at the end of forty years, the soil supplied with salts of ammonia has yielded, during the whole time, and still continues to yield, a larger produce than is obtained by a liberal supply of phosphates and alkaline salts without ammonia. When we consider that every one hundred pounds of wheat crop, as carted to the stack, contains about five per cent. of mineral matter, and one per cent. of nitrogen, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that my soil has a large available balance of mineral substances which the crop could not make use of for want of nitrogen. The crop which has received these mineral manures now amounts to from twelve to thirteen bushels per acre, and removes from the land about sixteen pounds of nitrogen every year. Analyses of the soil show that, even after the removal of more than thirty crops in succession, without any application of manure containing ammonia, the soil still contains some thousands of pounds of nitrogen. This nitrogen is in combination with carbon; it is very insoluble in water, and until it becomes separated from the carbon, and enters into combination with oxygen, does not appear to be of any use to the crop. The combination of nitrogen with oxygen, is known as nitric acid. The nitric acid enters into combination with the lime of the soil, and in this form becomes the food of plants. From its great importance in regard to the growth of plants, nitric acid might be called the main spring of agriculture, but being perfectly soluble in water, it is constantly liable to be washed out of the soil. In the experiment to which I have referred above--where wheat is grown by mineral manures alone--we estimate that, of the amount of nitric acid liberated each year, not much more than one-half is taken up by the crop. The wheat is ripe in July, at which time the land is tolerably free from weeds; several months, therefore, occur during which there is no vegetation to take up the nitric acid; and even when the wheat is sown at the end of October, much nitric acid is liable to be washed away, as the power of the plant to take up food from the soil is very limited until the spring. The formation of nitric acid, from the organic nitrogen in the soil, is due to the action of a minute plant, and goes on quite independent of the growth of our crops. We get, however, in the fact an explanation of the extremely different results obtained by the use of different manures. One farmer applies lime, or even ground limestone to a soil, and obtains an increase in his crops; probably he has supplied the very substance which has enabled the nitrification of the organic nitrogen to increase; another applies potash, a third phosphates; if either of these are absent, the crops cannot make use of the nitric acid, however great may be the amount diffused through the soil. It may possibly be said that the use of mineral manures tends to exhaust the soil of its nitrogen; this may, or may not, be true; but even if the minerals enable the crop to take up a larger amount of the nitric acid found in the soil year by year, this does not increase the exhaustion, as the minerals only tend to arrest that which otherwise might be washed away. We must look upon the organic nitrogen in the soil, as the main source of the nitrogen which grows our crops. Whatever may be the amount derived from the atmosphere, whether in rain, or dew; or from condensation by the soil, or plants, it is probable that, where the land is in arable cultivation, the nitrogen so obtained, is less than the amount washed out of the soil in nitric acid. Upon land which is never stirred by the plow, there is much less waste and much less activity. The large increase in the area of land laid down to permanent pasture in England, is not due alone to the fall in the price of grain. The reduction of fertility in many of the soils, which have been long under the plow, is beginning to be apparent. Under these circumstances a less exhausting course of treatment becomes necessary, and pasture, with the production of meat, milk, and butter, takes the place of grain fields. APPENDIX. Letter from Edward Jessop, York, Pa. YORK, PA., March 16, 1876. _Joseph Harris, Esq., Moreton Farm, Rochester, N.Y.:_ DEAR SIR--Your favor of the 22d of last month came safely to hand, and I am truly obliged to you for the reply to my question.--You ask, can I help you with facts or suggestions, on the subject of manure? I fear not much; but it may be useful to you to know what others need to know. I will look forward to the advent of “Talks on Manures” with much interest, hoping to get new light on a subject second to none in importance to the farmer. I have done a little at composting for some years, and am now having a pile of about forty cords, made up of stable-manure and earth taken from the wash of higher lands, turned and fined. The labor of digging and hauling the earth, composting in thin layers with manure, turning, and fining, is so great, I doubt whether it pays for most farm crops--this to be used for mangel-wurzel and market-garden. The usual plan in this county is to keep the stable-manure made during winter, and the accumulation of the summer in the barn-yard, where it is soaked by rain, and trampled fine by cattle, and in August and September is hauled upon ground to be seeded with wheat and grass-seeds. I do not think there is much piling and turning done. My own conclusions, not based on accurate experiments, however, are, that the best manure I have ever applied was prepared in a covered pit on which cattle were allowed to run, and so kept well tramped--some drainage into a well, secured by pouring water upon it, when necessary, and the drainage pumped and distributed over the surface, at short intervals, particularly the parts not well tramped, and allowed to remain until it became a homogeneous mass, which it will do without having undergone so active a fermentation as to have thrown off a considerable amount of gas. The next best, composting it with earth, as above described, piled about five or six feet high, turned as often as convenient, and kept moist enough to secure fermentation. Or, to throw all the manure as made into a covered pit, until it is thoroughly mixed and made fine, by allowing hogs to run upon it and root at will; and when prepared for even spreading, apply it as a top-dressing on grass-land--at any convenient time. As to how many loads of fresh manure it takes to make one of well-rotted manure, it may be answered approximately, _three to one_, but that would depend a good deal on the manner of doing it, and the amount of rough material in it. If well trodden by cattle under cover, and sufficient drainage poured over it, to prevent any violent fermentation, the loss of weight, I think, would not be very great, nor the bulk lessened over one-half. Many years ago an old and successful farmer said to me, “if you want to get the full benefit of manure, spread it as a top-dressing on some _growing crop_,” and all my experience and observation since tend to confirm the correctness of his advice. While on this subject, allow me to protest against the practice of naming the quantity of manure applied to a given space, as so many _loads_, as altogether too indefinite. The bushel or cord is a definite quantity, which all can understand. The average price of good livery stable horse-manure at this place has been for several years four dollars a cord. With two and a half miles to haul, I am trying whether keeping a flock of 50 breeding ewes, and feeding liberally with wheat bran, in addition to hay and pasture, will not produce the needed manure more cheaply. Respectfully yours, EDWARD JESSOP. _P.S._--You ask for the average weight of a cord of manure, such as we pay four dollars for. I had a cord of horse-stable manure from a livery stable in York which had been all the time under cover, with several pigs running upon it, and was moist, without any excess of wet, loaded into a wagon-box holding an entire cord, or 128 cubic feet, tramped by the wagoner three times while loading. The wagon was weighed at our hay-scales before loading, and then the wagon and load together, with a net result for the manure of 4,400 lbs. I considered this manure rather better than the average. I had another load, from a different place, which weighed over 5,000 lbs., but on examination it was found to contain a good deal of coal ashes. We never _buy_ by the ton. Harrison Bros. & Co., Manufacturing Chemists, Philadelphia, rate barnyard-manure as worth $5.77 per ton, and say that would be about $7.21 per cord, which would be less than 1½ tons to the cord. If thrown in loosely, and it happened to be _very dry_, that might be possible. Waring, in his “Handy Book of Husbandry,” page 201, says, he caused a cord of well-trodden livery stable manure containing the usual proportion of straw, to be carefully weighed, and that the cord weighed 7,080 lbs. The load I had weighed, weighing 4,400 lbs., was considered by the wagoner and by myself as a fair sample of good manure. In view of these wide differences, further trials would be desirable. Dana, in his “Muck Manual,” says a cord of green cow-dung, pure, as dropped, weighs 9,289 lbs. Farmers here seldom draw manure with less than three, more generally with four horses or mules; loading is done by the purchaser. From the barn-yard, put on loose boards, from 40 to 60 bushels are about an average load. In hauling from town to a distance of three to five miles, farmers generally make two loads of a cord each, a day’s work. From the barn-yard, a very variable number, per day. In my own case, two men with three horses have been hauling six and seven loads of sixty bushels, fine compost, a distance of from one-half to three-fourths of a mile, up a long and rather steep hill, and spreading from the wagon, as hauled, upon grass-sod. Our larger farmers often have one driver and his team, two wagons, one loading, while the other is drawn to the field; the driver slips off one of the side-boards, and with his dung-hook draws off piles at nearly equal distances, to be spread as convenient. EDWARD JESSOP. Letter from Dr. E. L. Sturtevant, South Framingham, Mass. SOUTH FRAMINGHAM, MASS., April 2, 1876. FRIEND HARRIS--Manure about Boston is sold in various ways. First, according to the number of animals kept; price varying so much, that I do not venture to name the figures. By the cord, to be trodden over while loading; never by weight, so far as I can learn--price from 0 to $12.00 per cord, according to season, and various accidental circumstances. During the past winter, manure has been given away in Boston. Handling, hauling to the railroad, and freight costing $4 per cord for carrying 30 miles out. Market-gardeners usually haul manure as a return freight on their journeys to and from market. About South Framingham, price stiff at $8 a cord in the cellar, and this may be considered the ruling suburban price. Very friendly yours, E. LEWIS STURTEVANT. Letter from M. C. Weld. NEW YORK, Nov. 9, 1876. MY DEAR HARRIS--I don’t know what I can write about manures, that would be of use. I have strong faith in humus, in ashes, leached and unleached, in lime, gas-lime, plaster, bones, ammonia ready formed, nitrates ready formed, not much in meat and blood, unless they are _cheap_. Nevertheless, they often are cheap, and produce splendid effects. I believe in sulphuric acid, with organic nitrogenous manures; the composting of meat, blood, hair, etc., with peat and muck, and wetting it down with dilute sulphuric acid. I believe in green-manuring, heartily, and in tillage, tillage, tillage. Little faith in superphosphates and compounded manures, at selling prices. Habirshaw’s guano is good enough. So much for my creed. Truly yours, M. C. WELD. Letter from Peter Henderson. NEW YORK, Oct. 26, 1876. _Mr. Joseph Harris_: DEAR SIR--If you will refer to my work “Gardening for Profit,” New Edition, page 34, you will get about all the information I possess on Manures, except that I do not say anything about price. In a general way it might be safe to advise that whenever _a ton_ (it is always best to speak of manures by weight) of either cow, horse, hog, or other stable-manure can be laid on the ground for $3, it is cheaper than commercial fertilizers of any kind at their usual market rates. This $3 per ton, I think, would be about the average cost in New York, Boston, or Philadelphia. We never haul it on the ground until we are ready to plow it in. If it has to be taken from the hog or cattle yards, we draw it out into large heaps, convenient to where it is to be put on the land, turning it, to keep it from burning or “fire-fanging,” if necessary. None of our farmers or market-gardeners here keep it under cover. The expense of such covering and the greater difficulties in getting at it, for the immense quantities we use, would be greater than the benefits to be derived from keeping it under cover--benefits, in fact, which, I think, may be greatly overrated. Very truly yours, PETER HENDERSON. Letter from J. M. B. Anderson, Ed. “Canada Farmer,” Toronto.