Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1877-04-11
Value of a Cows Manure.

n
Sometimes old farmers are so set in the
beliefs that have grown up in the dry soil o.
their limited experience and observation,
that they denounce writers for the agricul-
tural press as " fools " when they make per-
fectly true statements. Thus man signing
himself "Old Farmer" ridicules, in re-
cent issue of the New England Farmer the
statement that one thousand five hundred |
and thirty-five pounds of butter were made |
in year from six cows. Not long since
we were describing the new invention or |
the transmission of sound by electricity, |
called the telephone" in the presence of a |
person of this kind. He said: "Well, | |
have believed in the telegraph, but you never |
can make me believe that a man can talk in |
Salem and be heard in Boston," Of the
same style was the man who would not be-
lieve that years manure of four large |
English sheep, fed high for mutton, was
enough for an acre of land.
We have been hauled over the Goals for
the exaggerated value we have placed
have been urging the Importance of saving
both the liquid and the solid parts and we
have even been told that " there is no use in
lying so about what every farmer knows is
not So" The fact is, that very few farmers
do knoU the value of well-saved manure.
They waste it so terribly that they have
hardly the faintest notion how much they
do waste. The estimate of ten dollars per
COW, as the average annual loss in this state
from this waste is, we are quite sure, an
understatement. Most of our farmers save
none of the liquid manure, and most of them,
too, lose good share of the richness Of the
solid portion by teaching and fermentation.
But put the loss at even foe dollars a COW,
and the sum becomes far greater than all
the taxes raised in the state; enough to
maintain an agricultural school not only in
every county. but in every town in Yer
mont. Whether this loss, however, is two
million dollars or one million dollars, or the
quarter of million which it will amount to
if it is only one dollar a COW, it is an utterly
unn 'cessary waste-as much so as throwing
the money into Lake Champlan. Any man.
fit to be a farmer, can save every particle of
fertilizing matter produced on his farm.
1t is as great a sin TO waste manure as it is
to waste br, adj since the deficiency of the
one causes deficiency of the other.
This matter of saving all the manure is of
such vital Importance that we feel justified
-,
facts to our readers in every shape likely to
make lasting impression upon their minds.
Many of us are using some form of artificial
fertilizer to make up for a lack of stable
dung. We buy in these fertilizers Qf we
are not cheated), phosphoric acid, potash
and ammonia, aud the price we pay is sup
posed to be regulated by the quantity of
them contained in the particular kind
we buy.
Now, reckoning the value of these sub
stances in our manure at the price we pay
for them in our artificial fertilizers, we shall
find that in the average manure of dairy
COW for year (liquid and soiD there is
phosphoric acid, potash and ammonia equal
~ icdoI III qua lOlll anu Ndlut W WHdJ Is
contained in one ton of the best fertilizer in
the market-say fifty dollars. But if you
waste all the liquid and part of the solid
portion, you may not have value of over
fifteen dollars to the cow Here is loss of
thirty-five dollars per COW, and we shall ask
nobody to believe that, though we believe it
oursef. only, we want the reader to bear
in mind that if the manure of we'll fed
cow for one year is not worth fifty dollars,
neither is ton of the best fertilizer sold in
New England, since one contains as much
plant food as the other, and if there is any
difference in its condition, it is in favor of
the manure, when well saved.
There have been a great many analyses
made, by different chemists, of the dung
and urine of cows, and of course they vary
considerably. Ifthey did not vary we should
know, well enough, that they were wrong,
because the manure from different cows
varies, according to the size and thrift of
the animal and the quantity and quality of
the feed. The estimates of the yearly value
of the urine of a COW vary from twelve dol
lars to over thirty dollars, reckoning the
plant food in it at its market price in pur.
chased fertilizers. We do not hesitate to
say that much more than half of the farm
ers of Vermont lose all, or almost all, the
urine from their cows when not at pasture
1t is only where there are cellars under the
tie-ups that any material proportion is saved
for few use any absorbents, and where these
are used at all, it is generally with SC
sparing hand that little is gained by it
Cellars, or paved and cemented stables wei
supplied with absorbents, or with cementec
drain TO a cemented manure pit, are the onl,
effective means of saving this loss of one
ten or thirty dollars per COW, as the cas-,
may be. Is one COW stable in one hundred
in this state so constructed as TO save thi
liquid manure? Figure the loss high o.
low, it is enough for the whole state, to sa,
nothing OF the whole country, to scare al
economist into fits. Yet our farmers hav,
the name of being "savin creeters."