Talks on Manures Part 16

I wrote to the Hon. Harris Lewis, the well-known dairyman of Herkimer Co., N.Y., asking him some questions in regard to making and managing manure on dairy farms. The questions will be understood from the answers. He writes as follows:

"My Friend Harris.--This being the first leisure time I have had since the receipt of your last letter, I devote it to answering your questions:

"1st. I have no manure cellar.

"I bed my cows with dry ba.s.swood sawdust, saving all the liquid manure, keeping the cows clean, and the stable odors down to a tolerable degree.

This bedding breaks up the tenacity of the cow-manure, rendering it as easy to pulverize and manage as clear horse-manure. I would say it is just lovely to bed cows with dry ba.s.swood sawdust. This manure, if left in a large pile, will ferment and burn like horse-manure in about 10 days. Hence I draw it out as made where I desire to use it, leaving it in small heaps, convenient to spread.

"My pigs and calves are bedded with straw, and this is piled and rotted before using.

"I use most of my manure on gra.s.s land, and mangels, some on corn and potatoes; but it pays me best, when in proper condition, to apply all I do not need for mangels, on meadow and pasture.

"Forty loads, or about 18 to 20 cords is a h.o.m.opathic dose for an acre, and this quant.i.ty, or more, applied once in three years to gra.s.s land, agrees with it first rate.

"The land where I grow mangels gets about this dose every year.

"I would say that my up-land meadows have been mown twice each year for a great many years.

"I have been using refuse salt from Syracuse, on my mangels, at the rate of about six bushels per acre, applied broadcast in two applications. My hen-manure is pulverized, and sifted through a common coal sieve. The fine I use for dusting the mangels after they have been singled out, and the lumps, if any, are used to warm up the red peppers.

"I have sometimes mixed my hen-manure with dry muck, in the proportion of one bushel of hen-manure to 10 of muck, and received a profit from it too big to tell of, on corn, and on mangels.

"I have sprinkled the refuse salt on my cow-stable floors sometimes, but where all the liquid is saved, I think we have salt enough for most crops.

"I have abandoned the use of plaster on my pastures for the reason that milk produced on green-clover is not so good as that produced on the gra.s.ses proper. I use all the wood ashes I can get, on my mangels as a duster, and consider their value greater than the burners do who sell them to me for 15 cts. a bushel. I have never used much lime, and have not received the expected benefits from its use so far. But wood ashes agree with my land as well as manure does. The last question you ask, but one, is this: 'What is the usual plan of managing manure in the dairy districts?' The usual method is to cut holes in the sides of the stable, about every ten feet along the whole length of the barn behind the cows, and pitch the manure out through these holes, under the eaves of the barn, where it remains until too much in the way, when it is drawn out and commonly applied to gra.s.s land in lumps as big as your head. This practice is getting out of fas.h.i.+on a little now, but nearly one-half of all the cow-manure made in Herkimer Co. is lost, wasted.

"Your last question, 'What improvement would you suggest,' I answer by saying it is of no use to make any to these men, it would be wasted like their manure.

"The market value of manure in this county is 50 cts. per big load, or about one dollar per cord."

"That is a capital letter," said the Deacon. "It is right to the point, and no nonsense about it."

"He must make a good deal of manure," said the Doctor, "to be able to use 40 loads to the acre on his meadows and pastures once in three years, and the same quant.i.ty every year on his field of mangel-wurzel."

"That is precisely what I have been contending for," I replied; "the dairymen _can_ make large quant.i.ties of manure if they make an effort to do it, and their farms ought to be constantly improving. Two crops of hay on the same meadow, each year, will enable a farmer to keep a large herd of cows, and make a great quant.i.ty of manure--and when you have once got the manure, there is no difficulty in keeping up and increasing the productiveness of the land."

HOW TO MAKE MORE AND BETTER MANURE ON DAIRY FARMS.

"You are right," said the Doctor, "in saying that there is no difficulty in keeping up and increasing the productiveness of our dairy farms, when you have once got plenty of manure--but the difficulty is to get a good supply of manure to start with."

This is true, and it is comparatively slow work to bring up a farm, unless you have plenty of capital and can buy all the artificial manure you want. By the free use of artificial manures, you could make a farm very productive in one or two years. But the slower and cheaper method will be the one adopted by most of our young and intelligent dairymen.

Few of us are born with silver spoons in our mouths. We have to earn our money before we can spend it, and we are none the worse for the discipline.

Suppose a young man has a farm of 100 acres, devoted princ.i.p.ally to dairying. Some of the land lies on a creek or river, while other portions are higher and drier. In the spring of the year, a stream of water runs through a part of the farm from the adjoining hills down to the creek or river. The farm now supports ten head of cows, three horses, half a dozen sheep, and a few pigs. The land is worth $75 per acre, but does not pay the interest on half that sum. It is getting worse instead of better. Weeds are multiplying, and the more valuable gra.s.ses are dying out. What is to be done?

In the first place, let it be distinctly understood that the land is _not_ exhausted. As I have before said, the productiveness of a farm does not depend so much on the absolute amount of plant-food which the soil contains, as on the amount of plant-food which is immediately available for the use of the plants. An acre of land that produces half a ton of hay, may contain as much plant-food as an acre that produces three tons of hay. In the one case the plant-food is locked up in such a form that the crops cannot absorb it, while in the other it is in an available condition. I have no doubt there are fields on the farm I am alluding to, that contain 3,000 lbs. of nitrogen, and an equal amount of phosphoric acid, per acre, in the first six inches of the surface soil.

This is as much nitrogen as is contained in 100 tons of meadow-hay, and more phosphoric acid than is contained in 350 tons of meadow-hay. These are the two ingredients on which the fertility of our farms mainly depend. And yet there are soils containing this quant.i.ty of plant-food that do not produce more than half a ton of hay per acre.

In some fields, or parts of fields, the land is wet and the plants cannot take up the food, even while an abundance of it is within reach.

The remedy in this case is under-draining. On other fields, the plant-food is locked up in insoluble combinations. In this case we must plow up the soil, pulverize it, and expose it to the oxygen of the atmosphere. We must treat the soil as my mother used to tell me to treat my coffee, when I complained that it was not sweet enough. "I put plenty of sugar in," she said, "and if you will stir it up, the coffee will be sweeter." The sugar lay undissolved at the bottom of the cup; and so it is with many of our soils. There is plenty of plant-food in them, but it needs stirring up. They contain, it may be, 3,000 lbs. of nitrogen, and other plant-food in still greater proportion, and we are only getting a crop that contains 18 lbs. of nitrogen a year, and of this probably the rain supplies 9 lbs. Let us stir up the soil and see if we cannot set 100 lbs. of this 3,000 lbs. of nitrogen free, and get three tons of hay per acre instead of half a ton. There are men who own a large amount of valuable property in vacant city lots, who do not get enough from them to pay their taxes. If they would sell half of them, and put buildings on the other half, they might soon have a handsome income. And so it is with many farmers. They have the elements of 100 tons of hay lying dormant in every acre of their land, while they are content to receive half a ton a year. They have property enough, but it is unproductive, while they pay high taxes for the privilege of holding it, and high wages for the pleasure of boarding two or three hired men.

We have, say, 3,000 lbs. of nitrogen locked up in each acre of our soil, and we get 8 or 10 lbs. every year in rain and dew, and yet, practically, all that we want, to make our farms highly productive, is 100 lbs. of nitrogen per acre per annum. And furthermore, it should be remembered, that to keep our farms rich, after we have once got them rich, it is not necessary to develope this amount of nitrogen from the soil every year. In the case of clover-hay, the entire loss of nitrogen in the animal and in the milk would not exceed 15 per cent, so that, when we feed out 100 lbs. of nitrogen, we have 85 lbs. left in the manure. We want to develope 100 lbs. of nitrogen in the soil, to enable us to raise a good crop to start with, and when this is once done, an annual development of 15 lbs. per acre in addition to the manure, would keep up the productiveness of the soil. Is it not worth while, therefore, to make an earnest effort to get started?--to get 100 lbs. of nitrogen in the most available condition in the soil?

As I said before, this is practically all that is needed to give us large crops. This amount of nitrogen represents about twelve tons of average barn-yard manure--that is to say, twelve tons contains 100 lbs.

of nitrogen. But in point of fact it is not in an immediately available condition. It would probably take at least two years before all the nitrogen it contains would be given up to the plants. We want, therefore, in order to give us a good start, 24 tons of barn-yard manure on every acre of land. How to get this is the great problem which our young dairy farmer has to solve. In the grain-growing districts we get it in part by summer-fallowing, and I believe the dairyman might often do the same thing with advantage. A thorough summer-fallow would not only clean the land, but would render some of the latent plant-food available. This will be organized in the next crop, and when the dairyman has once got the plant-food, he has decidedly the advantage over the grain-growing farmer in his ability to retain it. He need not lose over 16 per cent a year of nitrogen, and not one per cent _of the other elements of plant-food_.

The land lying on the borders of the creek could be greatly benefited by cutting surface ditches to let off the water; and later, probably it will be found that a few underdrains can be put in to advantage. These alluvial soils on the borders of creeks and rivers are grand sources of nitrogen and other plant-food. I do not know the fact, but it is quite probable that the meadows which Harris Lewis mows twice a year, are on the banks of the river, and are perhaps flooded in the spring. But, be this as it may, there is a field on the farm I am alluding to, lying on the creek, which now produces a bountiful growth of weeds, rushes, and coa.r.s.e gra.s.ses, which I am sure could easily be made to produce great crops of hay. The creek overflows in the spring, and the water lies on some of the lower parts of the field until it is evaporated. A few ditches would allow all the water to pa.s.s off, and this alone would be a great improvement. If the field was flooded in May or June, and thoroughly cultivated and harrowed, the sod would be sufficiently rotted to plow again in August. Then a thorough harrowing, rolling, and cultivating, would make it as mellow as a garden, and it could be seeded down with timothy and other good gra.s.ses the last of August, or beginning of September, and produce a good crop of hay the next year.

Or, if thought better, it might be sown to rye and seeded down with it.

In either case the land would be greatly improved, and would be a productive meadow or pasture for years to come--or until our young dairyman could afford to give it one of Harris Lewis' "h.o.m.opathic"

doses of 40 loads of good manure per acre. He would then be able to cut two crops of hay a year--and such hay! But we are antic.i.p.ating.

That stream which runs through the farm in the spring, and then dries up, could be made to irrigate several acres of the land adjoining. This would double, or treble, or quadruple, ("hold on," said the Deacon,) the crops of gra.s.s as far as the water reached. The Deacon does not seem to credit this statement; but I have seen wonderful effects produced by such a plan.

What I am endeavoring to show, is, that these and similar means will give us larger crops of hay and gra.s.s, and these in turn will enable us to keep more cows, and make more manure, and the manure will enable us to grow larger crops on other portions of the farm.

I am aware that many will object to plowing up old gra.s.s land, and I do not wish to be misunderstood on this point. If a farmer has a meadow that will produce two or three tons of hay, or support a cow, to the acre, it would be folly to break it up. It is already doing all, or nearly all, that can be asked or desired. But suppose you have a piece of naturally good land that does not produce a ton of hay per acre, or pasture a cow on three acres, if such land can be plowed without great difficulty, I would break it up as early in the fall as possible, and summer-fallow it thoroughly, and seed it down again, heavily, with gra.s.s seeds the next August. If the land does not need draining, it will not forget this treatment for many years, and it will be the farmer's own fault if it ever runs down again.

In this country, where wages are so high, we must raise large crops per acre, or not raise any. Where land is cheap, it may sometimes pay to compel a cow to travel over three or four acres to get her food, but we cannot afford to raise our hay in half ton crops; it costs too much to harvest them. High wages, high taxes, and high-priced land, necessitate high farming; and by high farming, I mean growing large crops every year, and on every portion of the farm; but high wages and _low-priced land_ do not necessarily demand high farming. If the land is cheap we can suffer it to lie idle without much loss. But when we _raise_ crops, whether on high-priced land or on low-priced land, we must raise good crops, or the expense of cultivating and harvesting them will eat up all the profits. In the dairy districts, I believe land, in proportion to its quality and nearness to market, commands a higher price than land in the grain-growing districts. Hence it follows that high farming should be the aim of the American dairyman.

I am told that there are farms in the dairy districts of this State worth from one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars per acre, on which a cow to four acres for the year is considered a good average. At a meeting of the Little Falls Farmers' Club, the Hon. Josiah Shull, gave a statement of the receipts and expenses of his farm of 81 acres. The farm cost $130 per acre. He kept twenty cows, and fatted one for beef.

The receipts were as follows:

Twenty cows yielding 8,337 lbs. of cheese, at about 14 cents per pound $1,186.33 Increase on beef cow 40.00 Calves 45.00 --------- Total receipts $1,271.33 Expenses.

Boy, six months and board $180.00 Man by the year, and board 360.00 Carting milk and manufacturing cheese 215.00 ------- Total cost of labor $755.00 The Other Expenses Were: Fertilizers, plants, etc. $ 18.00 Horse-shoeing and other repairs of farming implements, (which is certainly pretty cheap,) 50.00 Wear and tear of implements 65.00 Average repairs of place and buildings 175.00 Average depreciation and interest on stock 180.00 Insurance 4.00 Incidentals, (also pretty low,) 50.00 ------- $620.00 Total receipts $1,271.33.

Total expenses 1,375.00.

This statement, it is said, the Club considered a very fair estimate.

Now, here is a farm costing $10,595, the receipts from which, saying nothing about interest, are less than the expenses. And if you add two cents per pound more to the price of the cheese, the profit would still be only about $50 per year. The trouble is not so much in the low price of cheese, _as in the low product per acre_. I know some grain-growing farmers who have done no better than this for a few years past.

Mr. Shull places the annual depreciation and interest on stock at $180, equal to nearly one-seventh of the total receipts of the farm. It would pay the wages and board of another man for six months. Can not it be avoided? Good beef is relatively much higher in this State than good cheese. Some of the dairy authorities tell us that cheese is the cheapest animal food in the world, while beef is the dearest. Why, then, should our dairymen confine their attention to the production of the cheapest of farm products, and neglect almost entirely the production of the dearest? If beef is high and cheese low, why not raise more beef? On low-priced land it may be profitable to raise and keep cows solely for the production of cheese, and when the cows are no longer profitable for this purpose, to sacrifice them--to throw them aside as we do a worn-out machine. And in similar circ.u.mstances we may be able to keep sheep solely for their wool, but on high-priced land we can not afford to keep sheep merely for their wool. We must adopt a higher system of farming and feeding, and keep sheep that will give us wool, lambs, and mutton.

In parts of South America, where land costs nothing, cattle can be kept for their bones, tallow, and hides, but where food is costly we must make better use of it. A cow is a machine for converting vegetable food into veal, b.u.t.ter, cheese, and beef. The first cost of the machine, if a good one, is considerable--say $100. This machine has to be kept running night and day, summer and winter, week days and Sundays. If we were running a steam-flouring mill that could never be allowed to stop, we should be careful to lay in a good supply of coal and also have plenty of grain on hand to grind, so that the mill would never have to run empty. No sensible man would keep up steam merely to run the mill. He would want to grind all the time, and as much as possible; and yet coal is a much cheaper source of power than the hay and corn with which we run our milk-producing machine. How often is the latter allowed to run empty? The machine is running night and day--must run, but is it always running to advantage? Do we furnish fuel enough to enable it to do full work, or only little more than enough to run the machinery?

"What has all this to do with making manure on dairy farms?" asked the Deacon; "you are wandering from the point."

"I hope not; I am trying to show that good feeding will pay better than poor feeding--and better food means better manure."

I estimate that it takes from 15 to 18 lbs. of ordinary hay per day to run this cow-machine, which we have been talking about, even when kept warm and comfortable; and if exposed to cold storms, probably not less than 20 lbs. of hay a day, or its equivalent, and this merely to keep the machine running, without doing any work. It requires this to keep the cow alive, and to prevent her losing flesh. If not supplied with the requisite amount of food for this purpose, she will take enough fat and flesh from her own body to make up the deficiency; and if she cannot get it, the machine will stop--in other words, the cow will die.

We have, then, a machine that costs say $100; that will last on an average eight years; that requires careful management; that must have constant watching, or it will be liable to get out of order, and that requires, merely to keep it running, say 20 lbs. of hay per day. Now, what do we get in return? If we furnish only 20 lbs. of hay per day we get--_nothing_ except manure. If we furnish 25 lbs. of hay per day, or its equivalent, we get, say half a pound of cheese per day. If we furnish 30 lbs. we get one pound of cheese per day, or 365 lbs. a year.

We may not get the one pound of cheese every day in the year; sometimes the cow, instead of giving milk, is furnis.h.i.+ng food for her embryo calf, or storing up fat and flesh; and this fat and flesh will be used by and by to produce milk. But it all comes from the food eaten by the cow; and is equal to one pound of cheese per day for 30 lbs. of hay or its equivalent consumed; 20 lbs. of hay gives us nothing; 25 lbs. of hay gives us half a pound of cheese, or 40 lbs. of cheese from one ton of hay; 30 lbs. gives us one pound, or 66? lbs. of cheese from one ton of hay; 35 lbs. gives us 1 lbs., or 85 5/7 lbs. of cheese to one ton of hay; 40 lbs. gives us 2 lbs. of cheese, or 100 lbs. of cheese from one ton of hay; 45 lbs. gives us 2? lbs. of cheese, or 111 lbs. of cheese from one ton of hay; 50 lbs. gives us 3 lbs. of cheese, or 120 lbs. of cheese from one ton of hay.

On this basis, one ton of hay, _in excess of the amount required to keep up the animal heat and sustain the vital functions_, gives us 200 lbs.

of cheese. The point I wish to ill.u.s.trate by these figures, which are of course hypothetical, is, that it is exceedingly desirable to get animals that will eat, digest, and a.s.similate a large amount of food, over and above that required to keep up the heat of the body and sustain the vital functions. When a cow eats only 25 lbs. of hay a day, it requires one ton of hay to produce 40 lbs. of cheese. But if we could induce her to eat, digest, and a.s.similate 50 lbs. a day, one ton would produce 120 lbs. of cheese. If a cow eats 33 lbs. of hay per day, or its equivalent in gra.s.s, it will require four acres of land, with a productive capacity equal to 1 tons of hay per acre, to keep her a year. Such a cow, according to the figures given above, will produce 401 lbs. of cheese a year, or its equivalent in growth. A farm of 80 acres, on this basis, would support 20 cows, yielding, say 8,000 lbs. of cheese. Increase the productive power of the farm one half, (I hope the Deacon has not gone to sleep), and keep 20 cows that will eat half as much again food, and we should then get 21,600 lbs. of cheese. If cheese is worth 15 cents per lb., a farm of 80 acres, producing 1 tons of hay, or its equivalent, per acre, and supporting 20 cows, would give us a gross return of $1,204.50. The same farm so improved as to produce 2 tons of hay or its equivalent, per acre--fed to 20 cows _capable of eating, digesting, and a.s.similating it_--would give a gross return of $3,240.

In presenting these figures, I hope you will not think me a visionary.

I do not think it is possible to get a cow to produce 3 lbs. of cheese a day throughout the whole year. But I do think it quite possible to so breed and feed a cow that she will produce 3 lbs. of cheese per day, _or its equivalent_ in veal, flesh, or fat. We frequently have cows that produce 3 lbs. of cheese a day for several weeks; and a cow _can_ be so fed that she will produce 3 lbs. of cheese a day without losing weight.