Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1874 — Making Manure on the Farm. [ARTICLE]

Making Manure on the Farm.

Every farm should furnish its own resources for manure; for, although, near cities, the wise fanner avails himself of whatever waste matter he can get that, is coiivcriible into manure, the crops there cultivated are generally of an exhausting nature and fully sufficient to carry off the extra fertility so added. But only a comparatively small number of farm's are situated near enough to cities so that their owner's can?avail themselves of this source of increasing the erops. and, therefore, the great number are obiigc’fl to fall back upon the resources of the farm itself. It is an English maxim that “a good farm is like a good joint of meat, "that only requires basting with its own dripping.” Translated, it means that a go<jd soil within itself all the resources of increased fertility. It is true the joint of meat must have been first made good: and so must the farm. Man must feed the animal to get the good joint; nature originally fed the "soil remiy for man.

How many who have opened new farms on virgin soils have left them as good as they found them? The history of a'l countries answers, Very few. Man first impoverishes and then, by the most laborious and costly means, refertilizes the worn soil. How quickly the farmers of the West are bringing their lands to that state when this refertilization will be the all-important question, the, decreased and constantly decreasing averages of grain per acre will tell. We do not mean by this that the time has yet Come in the West when, it has become imperatively necessary that an elaborate | system of making manure and compost j should be followed, although it might easily be demonstrated thht in many i sections such a course would be profitable. Nevertheless, the time lias come when it will pay a heavy interest on.the investment to :-ave carefully and give i back to -the soil whatever manure is made from the feeding of animals, and this brings us to the point we wished to make.

The growing of clover and the grasses lies at the foundation of profitable farming throughout the temperate zone. These furnish the cheapest food for stock of every kind, exclusively so in sommer. and are tlie main dependence of stock animals inwinter. No crop is so constant in growth, early ami late, under all kinds of treatment; no other crop is sowell adapted to a variety of soils, wet ; and dry, heavy or light; none other furi nishes so great a burthen to the soil in its tops and roots for plowing under, or the decomposition of which will better • support successive crops of oilier growths; none so ameliorates the soil i and renders it capable of furnishing the j best conditions for promoting the'best ! results from such crops as are grown for i 1 Again, he wbo raises plenty of grass » has. resources for the feeding of stock i and for makmgTarge quantities of ma- ' nure. In the summer the manure is

aped where the an’mals feed. Plowuder the sward produces large crops rn and other grain to be sold or fed to stock. If fed as it should be it gives an increased amount of the richest manure, for it must be remembered that the value of manure is just in proportion to the value of the food consumed by the animal. If the animal be fed straw only the manure is but the refuse of straw, as the aniifllals so fed are but the skeletons of their types; and the (ariaer who feeds his farm from the manure of ill-kept | stock is sure to have a soil producing ; nuke straw than grain. High feeding makes high nWmunng possible, high manuring makes fat land, and fat land makes rich farmers. Pb:..|« this we do not propose to overturn the generally-recognized systems of feeding in the West. I f we were at present engaged iu fattening cattle in Central Indiana, Illinois, lows and other sections of the greft corn long of the West, we should 'follow,Jn a measure, the usual plan of feeding the cattle., .in. the fields in good, iwiathe#, ind allowing swine to glean the Idrppjiijige. 'Thus scarcely anything is Jolt, afid; provided the animals are kept secure from storms, there is no questioning the economy of the method when corn is cheap and labor scarce and high. The question of how to feed every farmer must decide for himself, and this every practical. ..thoughtful—map. willUiduraUy do.. The man who makes graln*faMifl|;s shiir‘ eidlusive business with a viev/ to/gelling the grain and burning the straw or feeding it to cattle always enflsjf imimVerishing his farm and ultimately hinttelf; he is drawing constantly upon his principal. The first few years it is U’uc* tliis must often be done. If .followed tip it -must ultimately end in ’ 'APn yet how niapv men in the West think this the perfection of farming! We might go on and till pages in slumping the various resources that might become available on any farm in the making pf manure—the inexhaustible beds of muck evm jwhere found, peat, the scrapings of ditches, ashes, lime and plaster ; the liquid manure of stuck, really the most valuable, and usually entirely lost; the slops of the kitchen and the wmtterbsed'in washing; the consents of privies, accumulations of bones, wastejuiiAal and other matterthat litter yards,* befoul -store-rooms or decay in cellars, giving, rise to miasma that often ends'in liiseasft and death to the possess sors and their families. The Western Jfitnl lias heretofore spoken upon this Subject aid it is not necessary now to mofe than call attention to it, with the" espeicial object of pointing out the importance of grass as a principal source ol increased fertility to already worn farms. We acknowledge that “all flesh is grasg;” let us also remember that all grass is manure. Nature fertilizes the earth by the direct decay of vegetation. It is the province of the good farmer while reaping the reward of his wellbestowed labor to see that the refuse of DiC farm, manure, is faithfully applied; it may not always be done to the best ad-' vantage by the direct application of grass as manure. , He has been endowed with intelligence to convert grass into flesh; returning the manure to the soil he repays tp nature only the proper interest Which she demands. — Western Jiural.