Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 January 1918 — MAKING MANURE MORE VALUABLE [ARTICLE]

MAKING MANURE MORE VALUABLE

Manure Re-enforced With Fertilizer Gives Largest Yields. With the prospect of a decided shortage of plant food supplies, stable manure takes on increased Importance In crop production. It has not yet reached the point where it Is worth from $6 to $lO per ton, as some would have us believe, but It Is certainly worth enough to justify better care and attention than it has been getting. So much has been written about the saving of manure, but so much yet remains to be done by the farmer that we are led to believe the recommendations have been too complicated to follow 1 , or else (that the gain not been worth the price. There are, however, three things which may easily be done by any farmer, to increase the crop producing value of stable manure on his farm from 50 to 100 per cent, and these without any material Increase either in labor or capital. The Canadian field reports find a ton of fresh manure a little more valuable than, a ton of rotted manure (made from two tons of fresh manure). Therefore, we get twice as much value from manure when we haul it direct to the field, instead of throwing It Into a barnyard to rot.

The Pennsylvania agricultural experiment station found that manure spread at the rate of six tons per acre returns $3.29 per ton in crop increase, while when spread at the rate of ten tons per acre It returns only $2.29 per ton. Re-Enforce With Fertilizer. Manure is weak in the element phosphorus, and benefits immensely from the addition* of phosphoric acid. By adding about one-half a sack of acid phosphate to each ton of manure, the,Ohio experiment station increased the crop producing value of a ton of manure at least 50 per cent. The plant food in ordinary manure is only about three-fifths as effective as the plant food of commercial fertilizer. For this reason manure should always be supplemented with available fertilizer so that crops may be given aqutck start in the early spring. By handling manure as it should be handled —supplementing with available fertilizer and re-enforcing it with acid phosphate—we will be able to make our present supply of fertilizer and manure more effective in the production of food crops.