Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 254, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 November 1917 — STOP LOSS OF FERTILIZING MATERIALS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

STOP LOSS OF FERTILIZING MATERIALS

(From the United States Department of 5. Agriculture.) Farmers are urged in a statement recently Issued by Assistant Secretary Carl Vrooman to make every effort to save the vast amount of valuable manure now allowed to go to waste in this country. Assistant Secretary Vrooman estimates that one-half the manure produced in the United States Is not used as a fertilizer, there being an annual loss of material worth $1,200.000,000 —once and a half the value of the country’s 1916 wheat crop. “This is not a wild guess,” he continues, “but a very shrewd and conservative estimate based on reliable statistics. It has been found that each horse or mule produces annually $27 worth of manure (as compared with commercial fertilizers), each head of cattle S2O worth, each hog $8 worth. Calculating from the 1910 census figures for nUmhefr of animals on farms —62,ooo.ooo'cattle, 24.000,000 horses and mules, 58,000,000 swine, and 54,500,000 sheep and goats—the total value of manure produced is found to be about $2,461,000,000. Recent investigations by the United States department of agriculture indicate that at least half of this great wealth of fertilizing material is wasted. In some good general farming sections not more than 15 per cent of the manure produced is used. Even in the most intensive dairy regions; where cows are largely stall fed and comparatively great care taken with the manure, the loss seems to be approximately 25 per cent. Job for American Farmer.

“Here, then, is a job for the American farmer, worthy of his utmost effort and in keeping with the spirit of this great hour in American history. To save a billion dollars’ worth of manure is a herculean task —a veritable latter-day Augean-stablg job, for it means the handling of literally millions of tons of dung and litter. It means the construction of concrete manure pits, of paved feeding pens or sheds, and greatly increased care in the conservation and use of bedding materials. It means a lot of w’ork, but it is work that can be done at odd hours and moments, and work that will pay tremendous dividends, not only as a war measure, but conceivably for all time, for if we once get the habit of making full use of our available manure supply we are not likely to lapse into the old, wasteful ways again. “The cheapest and best way to handle manure, when convenient, is to haul it to the field and spread it daily, or at least every two or three days. Tn this way, If plenty of bedding be used, practically all the valuable constituents of the manure are saved, since leaching after the manure is on arable land merely serves to put the fertilizing materials where they ought to be. In this way, too, loss through heating, or *fire-fanging,’ is avoided Ideal Manure Pits. <r —“Manyfarmers, however, are notso as to make it profitable for them io handle mapure in this way.

For such farmers the concrete manure pit offers an ideal way of saving manure. Such a pit need not entail great expense. A pit three feet deep, 12 feet long and six feet wide, with walls and floors five inches thick, will serve the needs of the average farm. In ground that does not cave in, only an inside form will be needed for such a pit. except where the concrete extends a few Inches above the ground to prevent flooding by surface water. The floor should be re-enforced with woven-wire fencing, put in after about two-inches of cement has been laid, the sections of fencing being cut long enough to bend up a few inchesat either end into the side walls. When the re-enforcing has been put in the remaining three inches of the floor is laid, and the forms for the side walls. set up and used immediately. Use4me part cement, two of sand, and four of screened gravel. A pit of this kind is large enough to hold the accumulation of manure on the average farm until such a time as it can be hauled conveniently to the field and spread. Another Good Way. “Another good way to save manure, especialin the case of hogs or of beef cattle, is to have a concrete paved feed lot. preferably under a shed roof. Where the farmer cannot afford a paved floor, a cheap open fencing shed

may be made to serve the purpose very well if abundant bedding is used to absorb the valuable liquid manure. In such a feeding lot or shed the manure Is allowed to gather under the feet of the animals, each day’s bedding being strewn over the well-tramped accumulation below. Some farmers using this, system arrange their feed racks so that they can be raised from time to time, making it possible to feed till several feet of solidly packed manure has accumulated under the shed. “The feeding shed serves the purpose of giving the general farm, or the beef-cattle farm, something of the advantage in the matter of manure saving held by the intensive dairy farm. It has been shown by farm manage-ment-surveys that the manure saved onthe American farm under present conditions is almost exactly proportional to the number of animals stall fed on the farm and that the manure of animals not stabled has very little effect on yields, except in cases where field crops are ‘hogged off* or otherwise pastured down r or where pasture is used in a rotation. World’s Champion Wasters. “This great war has brought home to us Americans, as It has never been emphasized before, the fact that we are the world's champion wasters. Without making any comparisons, and subject to correction if it can be shown that the facts are otherwise, I dare aver that our billion-dollar waste is the world’s greatest single economic leak —the prize waste of the champion wastrels. With commercial fertilizers scarce, and some of them almost unobtainable, it would seem well worth our while, in this juncture, even withoutany reference to war conditions-, to do everything within our power to stem this tide of loss, especially in consideration of the fact that stable manure is the best form of fertilizer known, and w’hen we consider further the possible effect of a billion dollars’ worth of manure upon ’i’orld production at this time when the solemn duty of saving the world from famine de“rbTves directly uponus—weH, the vital need for manure pits and feeding lots In this broad land of ours becomes pretty clearly apparent,”

PROPER WAY TO APPLY MANURE TO SOIL.