Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1889-10-10

tnere Is quite q large per cent. or them
whose cattle are always lighter in the
| spring than they were the previous
| fall. SO that month or six weeks of
the best grazing season of the whole
year Is gone before they make up in
the spring the flesh lost during the
winter. 1t would be much better to
have no cattfe-ab all except what are
needed to. supply the familys than
manage them in this way. Tens .ef
thousands of cattle are sold every year
from farms worth $50 and upward an
an acre, which do not pay over 81
per month for their keeping from
birth to the day of sale, and the winter
management is to a great extent the
cause of this. The only way to make
money out of cattle is to have first, good
stock. and secondly, give it good care.
Fertilizers.
The science of fertilizers is now
well understood. Few farmers under
take to farm without them for they know
their use to be profitable, directly and
Indirectly. Not only is the present crop
benefited by them, but succeeding crops
also for it seldom happens that all of
a fertilizer is used up the first year.
Numerous instances might be named
70 demonstrate the value of this or that
fertilizer. A notable one occurred the
present year. A neighbor fertilized
part only of his peanut crop, leaving
the rest to the natural resources of the
field. The part not fertilized pro-e
duced an average of fifty-six shocks of
peanuts per acre, while the fertilized
portion produced ninety shocks.
and the peas of the latter were
not only better. but more to the
vine. This shows a gain of over Il
per cent. in favor of fertilizers Many
such instances VIII occur to the mind
of every reader.
But fertilizers are not always profita-
BILE. Sometimes they fail to show any
gain whatever. How is this accounted
for? Observation. has shown that in
the latter case the soil itself TO which
the fertilizer was applied w:is deficient
1t lacked organic matter. Here. then.
is the key to the matter. Fertilizers
are profitable, but they do not con-
stitute the whole science OF manuring.
They are good as n helper, a finisher
of, i complement, to 90 along with
organic matter, but they are never
profitable on a soil exhausted of humus.
1t is only when the manurial condition
of the soil is kept up by home resources
that it pays to employ fertilizers of any
grade or name.
We say this much in behalf of fertil-
izers in general. We are far from
saying that there is not, after ali,
great deal OF humbuggery about fertil-
izers. Farmers have been most
shamefully swindled before now, no
doubt, in some of them. We are Just
as far from saying that farmers could
not themselves manufacture. as good
fertilizerS-coneentra dfertilizers-at
home.
When a fertIlizing company grinds
up simple mari to mix with prepared
bone and little Bit of dried blood, and
sells it as first-class fertilizer, there
is nothing in the process that farmer
could not do for himself. We believe
farmers have often paid too dear for
this fertilizer whistle the shops have
been so eager to sell them. They
could have made better and q cheaper
article at home.
But this does not alter the case as to
the Importance of fertilizers in cpn-
centrated form. 1t only shows where
in farmers have been remiss. The
farmer should make his own dry fertil-
izers and know what he is using, and
not allow other men to mix articles
the character of which he is ignorant
Of
We are told that he can not do it,
that he lacks the machinery. Not so.
1t is not necessary that he should have
the machinery of the shops in order to
manipulate a fertilizer. A common
apple mill is all the machinery the
farmer needs to enable him to make
tirst-class concentrated plant foSd-
With this he can crush old mortar,
mari, bones. and shells; with this he
can grind dried animal manures to
mix with the plaster, both to be ground
together; with this he can mix j
variety of things, putting them in easy
shape for sowing in drill. The apple
mill has other uses than to crush fruit. =
The farmer can make his fertilizer in
winter when outdoor work is stopped.