The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1872-05-09
AGRICULTURAL.

ECONOMY IN MANURE.-It should be
cardinal principle with every farmer
to economize his manure. Upon this
depends his success, and without it, his
labors must, to a very great extent, be
without profit, If not attended with alb
solute loss.
If it is necessary to have the barnyard
on q hillside, it is equally necessary to
have the lower side Of it protected by u
wall, or some arrangement by which
the escape of liquid manure may be pre-
vented. 1t is almost equally important
to have q spout to convey rain water
from the roof of the barn in some other
direction than Immediately through the
barnyard.
1t is bad enough that the manure
heap should be exposed to rains which
fall directly upon it, without adding to
it the droppings from the roof of the
barn.
If such improvident farmers were to
behold the actual value of the fertilizing
material thus lost, rolling from their
purses in the shape of dollars and cents,
how energetically would they labor to
prevent this waste.
The loss of a single dollar would stir
them up to a greater activity than the
direct waste of hundred times that
amount in form of liquid manure. Year
after year, silently and steadily, the
golden streams are flowing f1om their
purses. Tell them of their error, and
they acknowledge it, but rarely does it
happen that, being reminded of it in a
friendly manner, they make a single eff
fort to correct it.
How many are there who, after a
lifetime of unremitting toll, find them
selves no richer in lands or money than
when they began
They cannot explain the reason.
Other causes may have led to such dis
couraging results, but if the drain of
| LIQUID manures from their barnyards
had been checked when they began
farming, very many of these unsuccess-
full ones would have been as prosperous
as their more provident neighbors
Every farmer subscribes to this he
knows it we'll but thinks he can do bet
ter, "under the circumstances" than
to let it go. He thinks, if he had con-
veniences, he would like to try the eff
fects of liquid manure; but everything
wants doing first," and it gets neglected
or, if he had any vegetable refuse al
hand which he could haul to soak W
the waste liquid, he would do that, but
such waste he has not.
Now, one of the very best things tC
soak up manure water, and make into
the very best of manure is common clay
It will pay any farmer well to hau,
clay to his barnyard for its absorb
ing properties. When this cannot bC
had, the washing of roadsides, cleaning
of bitches, or anything that comes tC
hand, may be used instead.
There are many other more complica
ted ways of making manure" by chem
ical ingredients, but this a simple one
which every one can understand. Al
it wants is the command of labor, anC
this is the main point in which so man,
farmers err.
Not to employ much" but to do al
possible oneself, and let the "rest go,
is the general plan. The farmer forget
that when he buys q ton of guano, h
has EN- ployed sailors, ship owners, com
mission merchants, and many others.
1t is not so much what Is made, tina
leads to riches and how to economic
in manure, and yet have abundance, j
one of the secrets OF becoming iicl
farmer.