Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-07-02
PRACTICAL TESTS.
Making the Most of Manure and Incre..-
Ing the Fertility of the Soil.

up my soil, and by allowing it to make
full growth in the fall | can maintain a
high degree of fertility and raise a crop
OF grain every year. l apply all the
manure possible in the fall and winter,
and as little as possible in the spring.
The bulk of it is used as topdressing
for wheat after the land is plowed, or
when we seed in corn land, after the
corn is cut up. 1 think we get larger
return from n applied to wheat
than when used on corn, with the adj
ded advantage of its benefit to the
clover which is always sown on the
wheat land. There is little comfort in
wagoning wet, heavy dung over soft
ground in spring, but in August the
fields are usually solid and the manure,
if rightly managed, dry. Our straw is
stacked in a b%arn-yard so small that we
a keep it all Uttered and the waste
cornstalks from the managers and the
manure from the constable is spread in
this yard every day. The cattle Gun
iessthe day be very stormy are kept
IN this yard by day and stabbed at
night.
The manure from the horses, with all
the soiled bedding, is thrown into the
stable Immediately behind them where
| young cattle run loose to tramp it;
under this arrangement we SAVE all the
manure, liquid and solid, for the barn
yard is so arranged that no water enters
it either from caves of barn or from
adjoining land. The stable furnishes
manure for potatoes and other spring
crops, and as it does not freeze we can
always draw this out and apply it dur
ing cold weather, when the ground is
frozen. Our shed or manure stable
holds comfortably twelve large two
horse loads, and with the manure from
four horses thrown into it daily and six
yearling cattle fed and bedded on it.
we filled it three times last winter,
giving us thirty-six loads of excellent
manure, or enough for about three
acres of land. The manure from the
barn-yard is not disturbed till the cattle
go to pasture, but if we find in March
that the stock are not likely to use up
all of the straw, we cut off a section Of
the stack every few days and scatter
over the barn-yard, or if it be needed
for bedding we move a part of it into
the barn.
The object is to get all the straw in
the yard under foot before the stock
are removed. We find it a great adj
vantageIto feed the hogs for a few DAYS
on this partly rotted straw in the barn
yard, as they help it to decay. At any
time in April or May when a heavy
rain stops field work and thoroughly
vets this strawy we put all
hands to turning and mixing it and
fork it up into beds about four feet
deep and fiat on toy, the object being
to start a moderate heat to help decom.
pose it,, After it is thrown up and
mixed it should be undisturbed for
about q month and then be turned and
we'll mixed again and a second fer
mentation will put it in good condition
for top dressing This takes some labor
but it reduces the bulk and saves time
ct the final handling and puts it in
such condition that it can be spread
more evenly and it will not choke the
drill at all. 1 have thrown all the butts
from twenty acres of heavy corn into a
barn-yard sixty feet square, which had
in the center of it a stack containing
from twenty to thirty tons of wheat
straw and had it all in such condition
by the middle of June that no one
would have guessed that there were
any cornstalks about it.
When one has grass land to manure
the contents of the manure shed may
/ Lo +,1ro,1 %o %lo En1l ,1,boo tlo 1,,I =,
frozen, at any time during the winter,
and spreadfrom wagon, and whether
the field is to be cut for hay or the sod
to be plowed down for a spring crop,
there is no better use to which manure
can be put. A pasture or meadow top
dressed with Il coat of good manure
will form q thick sward, the land be-
coming filled with fibrous roots which
by their decay not only furnish plant
food but also give that mellow condi-
ton of soil which is favorable to chem
ical action and also make cultivation
easy. Manure spread upon grass land
one or two years before it is to be
plowed will pay in the increased yield
of grass. and then will reproduce itself
in the fertility from the decayed sod.
tits the practice of many farmers touse
manure on their poorest land, but for
many years l have used all the manure
on the best land. l think it wise to
keep half my farm in the highest culti-
vation and pr~oductiveness and the
other half in permanent pasture rather
| than try to bring the poorer fields up
to the average by keeping down the
average of the best land.
can raise more grain and do it
more satisfactorily to keep forty acres
of my best land in grain constantly,
and apply all the manur | make to it
and trim down all the clover I can
grow in the fall on it. than 1 could if l
Should try to spread the W.
the entire farm, which contains ninety
acres. The remaining fifty acres is
good pasture land with abundant water
and we only pillow a part of it, and that
occasionally. | III make enough ma
nure to cover about ten acres Il year,
and as we pillow down twenty acres of
clover a year, our forty acres gets q
large amount of fertilizers. On a level,
rich farm, where all the land can be
cultivated, a different plan would per-
haps be best. 1t would be wise 10 use
all7the INT on the half nearest the
barn and keep that in grain more con-