Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 August 1876 — Haul Out the Manure. [ARTICLE]

Haul Out the Manure.

In the West, where no provisions are made to accumulate and protect the manure heaps, it is better that the farmer, during the dry months of autumn, remove all the barnyard manures and scatter them on the fields as evenly as possible. All refuse from old straw-stacks should be served in the same way, before threshing time, so that as little of its substance may be lost as possible, for while exposed to the elements, the rains wash the betterportions of it away, and thus it is lost. If scattered upon the fields when the ground is dry, the rains which fall upon it cany the fertilizing portions of it into the soil and spread it upon the surface in such manner as to be readily appropriated to plant growth when plowed under in the spring. We think it quite preferable to spread manures when being hauled, for two reasons; the labor is less and the land will be more uniformly enriched. If left in heaps any length of time, the rains cause much of the fertilizing properties to be left in the vicinity where the heaps lie, and thereby give portions of the land more than their proportion of the benefits. There is quite too much manure allowed to go to waste upon the fertile prairldb of the West, and farms, having been under cultivation for many years without the proper rotation of crops, which includes the grasses, begin to show unmistakable signs of exhaustion, and though the soil is no poorer than when in its virgin state, yet its conditions are so changed—the organic portions having returned to the inorganic—that it becomes necessary to provide the means for restoring these condiditions, to keep up a uniform yield of crops. Though the farms are large, and the farmer finds it difficult to get barnyard manure enough to go very far, yet he should make good use of what he has and it where it is needed most. Chemical analysis is but a poor guide for the agriculturist, for it proves qualities and kinds rather than conditions of soil. The condition is the important part to be considered, the thing the farmer must persistently look after. The inorganic properties must be converted into tlie organic, which may be done by the use of clover and the grasses, used for pasturage, and by supplying the vegetable mold in the form of manures, etc. The portions of the farm contiguous to the barnyard are more easily kept in a productive state than the outlying portions. The washings of the feea lots, the droppings of the domestic animals during certain portions of the year, and the effects of the pastures for the stock, which are apt to be located in the vicinity of the farm-house, all tend to keep up the fertility of the soil to this limited extent, so that the manure should be applied upon the extreme portions of the farm, that one part may not remain in good heart at the expense of any other portion. Our farmers must not rest upon the results of the past, for, as has always been seen by experienced farmers, large crops will not continue forever. Because our fertile prairies have consented to send abundant returns so many years, it does not follow that they will continue to do so forever. The soil being a manufacturer, it cannot produce the perfect articles of commerce if the raw material is exhausted.—Western Rural.