Rensselaer Union, Volume 12, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1879 — Stable Manure the Stand-By. [ARTICLE]

Stable Manure the Stand-By.

The constantly increasing use of commercial or chemical manure in this countiy is an indication of progress in agriculture; but it is well to do things with moderation, and to hold fast tne old that is proved, while accepting and utilizing to our best advantage the good things that are new. Prominent among the old that should not be neglected, is stable manure, not only its use, but also its careful manufacture; we should not merely utilize what we cannot help making, but we should make as much of it as we can profitably. It will, of course, not pay to keep animals solely to serve as machines for working hay, straw and roots over into manure, and then to sell them at a loss; but while the vicissitudes of the local markets may occasionally reduce the price of stock to so low a point as to produce this result, we do not think that any fairminded farmer will contend that as a general thing he cannot sell a wellfattened beeve, or a good heifer, or a sturdy brace of steers that he has raised for more than their cost. If he has fed them poorly and they are lean and scrawny, he may not find buyers; if he has fed them well, somebody will take them at a paying price; and the more liberally they are fed, the better their manure. And when the farmer has this manure he knows just what it is good for, and what he can do with it, if ne has had any ordinary amount of experience to guide him m his business; and it is of all manures the least likely to give him the go-by, with the plea that the season was unfavorable for its work.

Used properly, as every good farmer knows how to use it, it can never do any harm, notwithstanding some of the foolishness that is occasionally seen in the papers about the matter. In an article which has lately come under our notice we are treated to several assertions as to the bad effects of stable manure on the auality of certain crops for which we believe there is very slight foundation, if any at all; and when there are not assertions as to harm that has been done, there are suggestions, supplied by the writer’s fertile imagination, of greater harm that may De done. It is asserted that vegetables are more watery, and otherwise of a poorer quality, when manured with stable manure than when chemical manures are used—that pig’s dung imparts a flavor of its own to roots and to tobacco; and it is suggested that the decaying animal matter of this manure may cause disease in animals that feed on grass produced with its aid. Farmers should learn by practice how to make profitable use ci chemical fertiU-

aera; bat they should not be led by any mob wild statements and hints as these to give up stable manure; it is, after all, the staple feeder of the crops in any long settled country, and in the present condition of things the human population of the world cannot be fed and clothed without its assistance.— N. T. Tribune.