The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1882-02-25

A friend lately remarked to me that as
was cleaning out under piggeries, hem
houses and barns to draw the rich accu-
mutations of years on the fields, would
not need to buy commercial fertilizers
the coming season. This idea is COM
monty advanced, and generally in con-
nection with the commercial fertilizers,
but it is most fallacious one. So far
from proposing to buy less manure, /
am cleaning out every available load of
fertilizers, in order to be able to afford to
buy more. The man who, year after
year, allows manure to lie in his barn
yards is pretty sure, sooner or later, to
lack the money to pay for phosphate and
other fertilizers. Then the farmers who
boast that they never buy phosphate,
and who are only little, fany less neg
lectful of their own supplies. have their
spiteful little chuckle over the s'failure
of high farming" The failure is not of
that by any means but of wasteful neg
lect. The manure made on the farm may
not be the cheapest the farmer uses. [
have often heard enthusiasts aver that
some commercial manures were cheaper
than the product of their stabbed ami
mails. This is often true, but when ma
nure is. made, there remains only the
expense of drawing it out, and this can
always be afforded. A good farmer can
well afford one dollar per load for good
stable manure when the distance is not
more than three or four miles. He may
not be able to pay this for one crop, and
for this the commercial fertilizer drilled
in with the seed may be the cheapest fer
tilizer that can be used. The farmer
who tills rented land can therefore better
afford to buy phosphate and other
concentrated fertilizers than he who
owns the farm he works. He can
afford to, because the labor in distrib-
uting the fertilizer is reduced to the
smallest proportions; the fertilizer is so
evenly distributed that the larger por-
ton is disable by the first crop. and as for
the money expended it should be re-
turned 200 fold within a year after it is
expended. All this makes fair case for
the advocates of commercial fertilizers,
but the fact remains that if by the use of
guano or phosphate they are securing
large crops and not returning any of,the
proceeds to the soil, they are surely ex-
hausting their farms, and the time is not
distant when the fertilizers on which
they trusted will fail to produce their
usual effect. On the other hand, il large
crops, produced by purchased fertilizers,
are in part returned to the soil, the re-
suit is a continued progress in fertility.
Stable manure can never be so thorough
" distributed as to be all taken up by
the first crop. This is gain to the soil,
preventing rapid exhaustion where sta
Bile manure is used freely. but it involves
a loss to the farmer who has to wait
longer for returns from the fertilizer he
applies.
- By promptly using all the available
manures on the farm several advantages
are secured. Larger crops enable the
farmer to keep more stock and make
larger piles of manure. Fertility is
doubtless increased in other ways. A
rich soil is more open to the air, and ut
the same time the crop covering which
it usually has protects it from drying
winds The many roots of plants open
the soil to the rains and SHOWS, protect
it from washing, and to some extent af-
ford natural underdrainage. Anyone
can test this in open weather during the
winter, when the ground is saturated
with water by walking on strong grow
ing wheat, and on bare field naturally
as dry, on which nothing has been sown-
The difference should convince any one
of the advantage of keeping the land
ered.-Counary Gsntsessanr