New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1879-02-05
Farming fer Profit.

lhe most profitable farming is that
which gives the largest returns for the
smallest comparative outlay This
statement is based on business princi-
pies, but is not always apparently true,
for sometimes a farmer gets large
crops with small outlay by the use Of
means which draw heavily upon the
reserve forces of the soil. The latter
should be reckoned into the expense
account, but usually is not, though if
such course is continued, it results in
exhaustion. To revise the first state
ment, then: That kind of farming is
most profitable which gives the largest
returns for the expense incurred, with
out decreasing ones capital by exhaust
ing the soil.
English agriculture dates its rise
from the beginning Of the fattening of
animals for market. The most fertile
farms in the Eastern States to-day are,
as a rule, those that are devoted to
stock and dairy farming. The produc-
ton and sale of large crops of grain,
potatoes and other field crops, without
any return Of fertility, has caused tho
present sterility Of the many thousand
acres of ly-exhausted farm
lands. West, South and East. If their
owners had kept live stock for the con-
sumption Of the crops, and sold only
the animal products and the surplus
grain, etc. they might have been even
more productive to-day than in the be-
ginning. The growth of plants does
not exhaust the soil, but on the con-
trary makes it richer, so long as the
mineral and heterogeneous elements of
plant food are returned to the land.
The action of the roots is to extract
FOOD material from the rocks Gas we
may regard the inorganic matter of
the soiD, and of the leaves to draw it
from the air, and to store it in the soil;
but If more than the material thus OBJ
tanned is removed and not returned,
exhaustion necessarily follows. -.
By feeding crops to animals, the
larger portion of the essential mineral
and heterogeneous portions are returned
to the soil in the resulting manure; par
tlcuiarly is this the case i'll fattening
mature animals, and in the production
1f butter and pork. An animal ex-
tracts from its foo'R nitrogen for it's
muscles, phosphate for its bones, some
potash, anal the vegetable oils and 9TH
er carbonaceous matter for it's fatty
tissues and for respiration. The nitro
gen.. phosphates and potash we must
supply TO the soil, as plants seldom OBJ
tain these materials from natural
sources so rapidly as we remove them
III crops sold; the material for oils, SUI
gar, starch, and other carbonaceous
me- $,,,,osehol -,
from air and soil in ample quantities to
meet Ill demands. Now, growing
animal stores up the first three Of
these food materials A mature ami
NAL, On the contrary, only uses enough
OF them to make good the wastes of the
body, but these wastes are all found in
the excrcments; so that practically
fattening animal removes none Of those
constituents of its food that are valua-
ble tor manure. We can, therefore,
feed the homegrown crops and pur-
chased food to mature animals, and get
nearly or outlets full value twice over,
in beef and in manure for the produc-
ton of more crops.
Similar principles apply in feeding
swine. Pork is for the most part COM
posed of fatty matter which costs moth
ing in the crop. Hence the value of
hog-manure, with which every farmer
is familiar. In butter-making, also,
very little if any fertility is removed
from the farm in the butter sold, as it
is composed wholly of fatty compounds.
This fact is illustrated in practice by
the exceptional fertility of butter dairy
farms, which, instead of becoming stcr.
lie, are continually growing more fer
tile. These facts indicate that the
profitable farming of the future, in
many sections, is TO be, as tits to-day,
i'll increased attention to fattening ami
N ais and dairying.- Anse'icaa AgTicaslt-
4ris!.