MANAGEMENT OF MANURES ON GRAIN-FARMS.
“I am surprised to find,” said the Deacon, “that Mr. Harison, living as
he does in the great grass and dairy district of this State, should
raise so much grain. He has nearly as large a proportion of his land
under the plow as some of the best wheat-growers of Western New York.”
This remark of the Deacon is right to the point. The truth is, that some
of our best wheat-growers are plowing less land, and are raising more
grass, and keeping more stock; and some of the dairymen, though not
keeping less stock, are plowing more land. The better farmers of both
sections are approaching each other.
At all events, it is certain that the wheat growers will keep more
stock. I wrote to the Hon. Geo. Geddes, of Onondaga Co., N.Y., well
known as a large wheat-grower, and as a life-long advocate of keeping up
the fertility of our farms by growing clover. He replies as follows:
“I regret that I have not time to give your letter the consideration it
deserves. The subject you have undertaken is truly a difficult one. The
circumstances of a grain-raiser and a dairyman are so unlike, that their
views in regard to the treatment of the manure produced on the farm
would vary as greatly as the lines of farming they follow.
“The grain-grower has straw in excess; he tries hard to get it into such
form that he can draw it to his fields, and get it at work, at the least
cost in labor. So he covers his barn-yards deep with straw, after each
snow-storm, and gets his cattle, sheep, and horses, to trample it under
foot; and he makes his pigs convert all he can into such form that it
will do to apply it to his pastures, etc., in winter or early spring.
“A load of such manure is large, perhaps, but of no very great value, as
compared with well-rotted stable-manure from grain-fed horses; but it is
as good as much that I have seen drawn from city stables, and carried
far, to restore the worn-out hay-fields on the shores of the North
River--in fact, quite like it.
“The dairyman, generally, has but little straw, and his manure is mostly
dung of cows, worth much more, per cord, than the straw-litter of the
grain-growers.
“The grain-grower will want no sheds for keeping off the rain, but,
rather, he will desire more water than will fall on an open yard. The
milkman will wish to protect his cow-dung from all rains, or even snows;
so he is a great advocate of manure-sheds. These two classes of farmers
will adopt quite unlike methods of applying their manure to crops.
“I have cited these two classes of farmers, simply to show the
difficulty of making any universal laws in regard to the treatment and
use of barn-yard manure. * * *
“I think you and I are fully agreed in regard to the farm being the true
source of the manure that is to make the land grow better with use, and
still produce crops--perhaps you will go with me so far as to say, the
greater the crops, the more manure they will make--and the more manure,
the larger the crops.
“Now, I object to any special farming, when applied to a whole great
division of country, such as merely raising grain, or devoted entirely
to dairying.
“I saw at Rome, N.Y., these two leading branches of New York farming
united on the Huntington tract of 1,300 acres. Three or four farms (I
forget which) had separate and distinct management, conducted by
different families, but each had a dairy combined with the raising of
large crops of grain, such as wheat, corn, oats, etc. These grain-crops,
with suitable areas of meadow and pasture, sustained the dairy, and the
cows converted much of the grain, and all of the forage, into manure.
Thus was combined, to mutual advantage, these two important branches of
New York farming. Wheat and cheese to sell, and constant improvement in
crops.
“In our own case, sheep have been combined with grain-raising. So we
have sold wool, wheat, and barley, and, in all my life, not five tons of
hay. Clover, you know, has been our great forage-crop. We have wintered
our sheep mostly on clover-hay, having some timothy mixed with it, that
was necessarily cut (to make into hay with the medium, or early clover,)
when it was but grass. We have fed such hay to our cows and horses, and
have usually worked into manure the corn-stalks of about 20 acres of
good corn, each winter, and we have worked all the straw into shape to
apply as manure that we could, spreading it thickly on pastures and such
other fields as were convenient. Some straw we have sold, mostly to
paper-makers.”
“That,” said the Deacon, “is good, old-fashioned farming. Plenty of
straw for bedding, and good clover and timothy-hay for feed, with wool,
wheat, and barley to sell. No talk about oil-cake, malt-combs, and
mangels; nothing about superphosphate, guano, or swamp-muck.”
Mr. Geddes and Mr. Johnston are both representative farmers; both are
large wheat-growers; both keep their land clean and thoroughly
cultivated; both use gypsum freely; both raise large crops of clover and
timothy; both keep sheep, and yet they represent two entirely different
systems of farming. One is the great advocate of clover; the other is
the great advocate of manure.
I once wrote to Mr. Geddes, asking his opinion as to the best time to
plow under clover for wheat. He replied as follows:
“Plow under the clover when it is at full growth. But your question can
much better be answered at the end of a long, free talk, which can best
be had here. I have many times asked you to come here, not to see fine
farming, for we have none to show, but to see land that has been used to
test the effects of clover for nearly 70 years. On the ground, I could
talk to a willing auditor long, if not wisely. I am getting tired of
being misunderstood, and of having my statements doubted when I talk
about clover as the great renovator of land. You preach agricultural
truth, and the facts you would gather in this neighborhood are worth
your knowing, and worth giving to the world. So come here and gather
some facts about clover. All that I shall try to prove to you is, that
the fact that clover and plaster are by far the cheapest manures that
can be had for our lands, has been demonstrated by many farmers beyond a
doubt--so much cheaper than barn-yard manure that the mere loading of
and spreading costs more than the plaster and clover. Do not quote me as
saying this, but come and see the farms hereabouts, and talk with our
farmers.”
Of course I went, and had a capital time. Mr. Geddes has a magnificent
farm of about 400 acres, some four miles from Syracuse. It is in high
condition, and is continually improving, and this is due to growing
large and frequent crops of clover, and _to good, deep plowing, and
clean and thorough culture_.
We drove round among the farmers. “Here is a man,” said Mr. G., “who run
in debt $45 per acre for his farm. He has educated his family, paid off
his debt, and reports his net profits at from $2,000 to $2,500 a year on
a farm of 90 acres; and this is due to clover. You see he is building a
new barn, and that does not look as though his land was running down
under the system.” The next farmer we came to was also putting up a new
barn, and another farmer was enlarging an old one. “Now, these farmers
have never paid a dollar for manure of any kind except plaster, and
their lands certainly do not deteriorate.”
From Syracuse, I went to Geneva, to see our old friend John Johnston.
“Why did you not tell me you were coming?” he said. “I would have met
you at the cars. But I am right glad to see you. I want to show you my
wheat, where I put on 250 lbs. of guano per acre last fall. People here
don’t know that I used it, and you must not mention it. It is grand.”
I do not know that I ever saw a finer piece of wheat. It was the Diehl
variety, sown 14th September, at the rate of 1¼ bushels per acre. It was
quite thick enough. One breadth of the drill was sown at the rate of two
bushels per acre. This is earlier. “But,” said Mr. J., “the other will
have larger heads, and will yield more.” After examining the wheat, we
went to look at the piles of muck and manure in the barn-yard, and from
these to a splendid crop of timothy. “It will go 2½ tons of hay per
acre,” said Mr. J., “and now look at this adjoining field. It is just as
good land naturally, and there is merely a fence between, and yet the
grass and clover are so poor as hardly to be worth cutting.”
“What makes the difference?” I asked.
Mr. Johnston, emphatically, “Manure.”
The poor field did not belong to him!
Mr. Johnston’s farm was originally a cold, wet, clayey soil. Mr. Geddes’
land did not need draining, or very little. Of course, land that needs
draining, is richer after it is drained, than land that is naturally
drained. And though Mr. Johnston was always a good farmer, yet he says
he “never made money until he commenced to drain.” The accumulated
fertility in the land could then be made available by good tillage, and
from that day to this, his land has been growing richer and richer. And,
in fact, the same is true of Mr. Geddes’ farm. It is richer land to-day
than when first plowed, while there is one field that for seventy years
has had no manure applied to it, except plaster. How is this to be
explained? Mr. Geddes would say it was due to clover and plaster. But
this does not fully satisfy those who claim, (and truly), that “always
taking out of the meal-tub and never putting in, soon comes to the
bottom.” The clover can add nothing to the land, that it did not get
from the soil, except organic matter obtained from the atmosphere, and
the plaster furnishes little or nothing except lime and sulphuric acid.
There are all the other ingredients of plant-food to be accounted
for--phosphoric acid, potash, soda, magnesia, etc. A crop of clover, or
corn, or wheat, or barley, or oats, will not come to perfection unless
every one of these elements is present in the soil in an available
condition. Mr. Geddes has not furnished a single ounce of any one of
them.
“Where do they come from?”
I answer, _from the soil itself_. There is probably enough of these
elements in the soil to last ten thousand years; and if we return to the
soil all the straw, chaff, and bran, and sell nothing but fine flour,
meat, butter, etc., there is probably enough to last a million years,
and you and I need not trouble ourselves with speculations as to what
will happen after that time. Nearly all our soils are practically
inexhaustible. But of course these elements are not in an available
condition. If they were, the rains would wash them all into the ocean.
They are rendered available by a kind of fermentation. A manure-heap
packed as hard and solid as a rock would not decay; but break it up,
make it fine, turn it occasionally so as to expose it to the atmosphere,
and with the proper degree of moisture and heat it will ferment rapidly,
and all its elements will soon become available food for plants. Nothing
has been created by the process. It was all there. We have simply made
it _available_. So it is with the soil. Break it up, make it fine, turn
it occasionally, expose it to the atmosphere, and the elements it
contains become available.
I do not think that Mr. Geddes’ land is any better, naturally, than
yours or mine. We can all raise fair crops by cultivating the land
thoroughly, and by never allowing a weed to grow. On Mr. Lawes’
experimental wheat-field, the plot that has never received a particle of
manure, produces _every year_ an average of about 15 bushels per acre.
And the whole crop is removed--grain, straw, and chaff. Nothing is
returned. And that the land is not remarkably rich, is evident from the
fact that some of the farms in the neighborhood, produce, under the
ordinary system of management, but little more wheat, once in four or
five years than is raised _every year_ on this experimental plot without
any manure.
Why? Because these farmers do not half work their land, and the manure
they make is little better than rotten straw. Mr. Lawes’ wheat-field is
plowed twice every year, and when I was there, the crop was hand-hoed
two or three times in the spring. Not a weed is suffered to grow. And
this is all there is to it.
Now, of course, instead of raising 15 bushels of wheat every year, it is
a good deal better to raise a crop of 30 bushels every other year, and
still better to raise 45 bushels every third year. And it is here that
clover comes to our aid. It will enable us to do this very thing, and
the land runs no greater risk of exhaustion than Mr. Lawes’ unmanured
wheat crop.
Mr. Geddes and I do not differ as much as you suppose. In fact, I do not
believe that we differ at all. He has for years been an earnest advocate
for growing clover as a renovating crop. He thinks it by far the
cheapest manure that can be obtained in this section. I agree with him
most fully in all these particulars. He formed his opinion from
experience and observation. I derived mine from the Rothamsted
experiments. And the more I see of practical farming, the more am I
satisfied of their truth. Clover is, unquestionably, the great
renovating crop of American agriculture. A crop of clover, equal to two
tons of hay, when plowed under, will furnish more ammonia to the soil
than twenty tons of straw-made manure, drawn out fresh and wet in the
spring, or than twelve tons of our ordinary barn-yard manure. No wonder
Mr. Geddes and other intelligent farmers recommend plowing under clover
as manure. I differ from them in no respect except this: that it is not
absolutely essential to plow clover under in the green state in order to
get its fertilizing effect; but, if made into hay, and this hay is fed
to animals, and all the manure carefully saved, and returned to the
land, there need be comparatively little loss. The animals will seldom
take out more than from five to ten per cent of all the nitrogen
furnished in the food--and less still of mineral matter. I advocate
growing all the clover you possibly can--so does Mr. Geddes. He says,
plow it under for manure. So say I--unless you can make more from
feeding out the clover-hay, than will pay you for waiting a year, and
for cutting and curing the clover and drawing back the manure. If you
plow it under, you are sure of it. There is no loss. In feeding it out,
you may lose more or less from leaching, and injurious fermentation.
But, of course, you need not lose anything, except the little that is
retained in the flesh, or wool, or milk, of the animals. As things _are_
on many farms, it is perhaps best to plow under the clover for manure at
once. As things ought to be, it is a most wasteful practice. If you know
how to feed out the hay to advantage, and take pains to save the manure
(and to add to its value by feeding oil-cake, bran, etc., with it), it
is far better to mow your clover, once for hay, and once for seed, than
to plow it under. Buy oil-cake and bran with the money got from the
seed, and growing clover-seed will not injure the land.
I am glad to hear that Mr. Geddes occasionally sells straw. I once sold
15 tons of straw to the paper-makers for $150, they drawing it
themselves, and some of my neighbors criticised me severely for doing
so. It is not considered an orthodox practice. I do not advocate selling
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.