Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 124, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1916 — STRAW VALUABLE AS A SOIL FERTILIZER [ARTICLE]

STRAW VALUABLE AS A SOIL FERTILIZER

Farmers Are Urged to Make More Extensive Use of It as Bedding and Feed. A large amount of straw is shipped from a county in Missouri to a nearby paper and strawboard factory. This straw brings the farmer about 50 cents per ton. A county agent recently found a pile of about 1,000 tons at Sikeston ready for shipment He computes that as a fertilizer this straw is worth $2.50 per ton, in addition to its value as a means of adding organic matter to the soil. He is making a campaign of the county in an attempt to show the inadvisability of the farmers selling their straw and urging its more extensive use as bedding in stables and feed lots. Straw used as a top dressing on fall wheat has been found to practically insure a good stand of clover on lands where clover is otherwise grown with great difficulty.