Mexico weekly ledger., 1884-12-11
THE WASTE OF MANURE.

How Quantities of FertiIizing Material Are
Wasted. and How They May be Saved.
While is the most important
adjunct OF successful farming, it is the
one thing most freely wasted. Farmers
build sheds to shelter old wagons, carts,
sleighs, hay-rigging. ETC., all of which
have an uncertain cash value, and can
always be readily supplied in ease of
loss; but how many of them make any
provision for protecting their manure
from waste by weather during the parts
of seasons when it is accommodating and
can not be applied? While some do.
the number who do not is far in excess,
and one of the most difficult of all farm
problems seems to be to convince them
that a wise care may be exercised in
this matter.
The trouble is due largely to the ap-
parently innate disposition of men to
adhere TO old custom without any other
why or wherefore" han that they are
old.
What is a barnyard for, primarily
Merely as a place of temporary deten-
ton. not as IA place of shelter nor for
feeding. because to feed animals when
they are loose is to incur great waste of
food. They have no sense of fairness
toward each other. little of se~lf-control,
and the strong always %tyrannize over
the weak. They can only be economic
ally fed where each is forced to respect
the rights of others. and that is in the
stall. Then again. the barnyard,
being open to the rain, the
SUI and winds. the manure wastes i'm
menselv. This ought to be plain from
observation. but tens of thousands of
farmers refuse to heed it and cling TO it,
As the Arab does to tent life, because it
was the custom of his fathers. To add
to their Objectionable features most
barns and sheds are without cutters, so
that all or most of the rain water from
them is discharged into the barnyard,
which increases the waste, filth
and unsightliness of these cattle
pens. Though ..cleanlinesS is next to
godliness." these sinks of nastiness are
maintained intact summer and winter,
with no other excuse than that they are
the agricultural fashion, and cost less
in cash to establish and maintain than
good roomy stalls in cattle barns, over
cellars where the MANURE a be shell
tered during the periods when it can
not be wisely spread on the land. 1t is
regarded as cheaper to waste several
hundred dollars a year in the loss OF
manure than it is to invest a few hum
bred during one year in a proper build
ing where the animals can be them
selves protected from heat and cold,
their food economical. and their drop
pings protected from waste. So in
spite of sense, argument, waste or any
thing else, the barnyard, with little nit
igation of its u~seleSsneSs, is maintained.
And of course. being maintained, it is
almost invariably supplemented by
waste elsewhere on the farm, and es'
p~ecially as regards There
| may be thousands of loads of swamp
muck to be had for the digging at ode
times, which. mixed with the eXcre
. ments, would vastly increase the
! manure supply and save much of the
l soluble parts which now go to waste
but thousands of ~non-reading farmer
l look upon such work as of less i'm
l portance than going to a circus. Thu
: opportunity TO compost hundreds o
L loads of vegetable matter is often neg
lected. All potato tops, straw, bog hay
. forest leaves and other vegetable mat
J ter is overlooked or rejected, ever
: though tons of patent fertilizers may b
. bought and applied. There probabl
has been no instruction or example o.
J this point, and the subject ma neye
{ ever be thought of, as men not traine'
Il in youth to look after such matters ar
> apt t o despise newspapers which aim t
give such instruction. The carcass c
a dead animal or of q fowl is neve
treated as of any value, and is above
TO decompose where it does no goo
!" to the land. Bones may be strew1
about the house or lawn, or in tn
BARNARD, and the unframed ey
> fails even to notice them for year:
n much less to bury them where the
e can do soms good to trees. vines {
i grass. The land is poor. yields poe
- crops, and the wner and his family al
>, poor also. and complain bitterly, pc,
Is haps, against their hard luck and ii
=, insurmountable difficulties they exper
r ence in the attempt to get on in tt
lie world. and yet are ready to take it as a
IT insult if told that they misuse their o.
5, portunities for advancement!
E. There is probably no better way
5, meet and mitigate this evil than to co
le tinue to talk and write against it, ar
nv ~
practice a better way. Thousands W
II live on without change. and finally d
in firm in the faith that they know al
1t practice all that is of value in agricu
id ture: but their children or their su
lg cessors will do better. They learn som
IS thing when the old do 0 There a
few neighborhoods in the land whit
ne have not shown some agricultural a
vance in the course of a generatio
oy Endless iteration and example ha
done it. The new race is more inqui
1t ing than the last, and every year Sc
a some improvement. hence those me
at anxious for improvement a afford
he work on in faith and hope.-N. I. +
:; aminer.
m Justice B~landford, of the Geore
er Supreme Court, recently made a fun
ed decision against dealing in Futures
e. his highly rhetorical ruling containil
he +b;C u-.rnipr. Faro br9r and pak