Nevada County picayune., 1890-02-19
ABOUT MANURE.
The Relative Value of Horse ana Gov
 Manure Discussed.


 Taking both horses and COWS as they are generally kept on tho farm, the manure from the former will be the most valuable. I do not feel, however like dropping the subject, says a con. tributor to the Breeders Gazette, with such brief answer, for there should be reason given for the answer when pos sible, and if one will only follow mp the subject opened by this question he will gain light upon one of the most ;mpor- tant topics that can be considered on the farm. To begin at the beginning, we should bear in mind that there can only pass from our cattle what has been given to them, and that all of the ele- ments in the manure must have been supplied in the food. As we may sup pose that foods vary in amounts of fer tilizing elements they carry with them, we may hold it as correct that the kind of food given to our farm animals gov erns the klnd of manure we get from them. This is the basic principle to be borne in mind in considering the sub ject The three elements of fertilizers that we care for are nitrogen, phos- phoric acid and potash. Of our feeding stufTs, grains and concentrated foods like cotton-seed meal and oilmeal con- tain the greatest amount of these three fertilizing constituents, and straw con tains the least. Starch and woody m at ter are not fertilizing elements in them selves.
 The next point to be borne in mind is that each animal we feed appropriates to itself of the elements of fertility in accordance with it's nature and wants, so that If we supply the same amount of feed to different animals we will not get exactly the same amount of fertility in the excrement of each. A little reflec- tion will point out the reason for these differences: A grown horse, which does not increase in weight, but each day wears out as much of his body in labor as was built up by the food, must evil dently give out in the cxcrenent all the fertilizers in the food supplied him. The colt, or a horse gaining in weight, evidently retains some of these elements in tho body, as they go to help make up the increased weight. A COW giving milk transfers some of the nitrogen to the milk in the shape of caseine, and some of the potash and phosphoric acid in the shape of ash; these are for the building up of the muscle and bone of her calf. Evidently, then, the excre- ment of the COW giving milk does not contain all of the fcrtilizing elements supplied in the food, since a portion of them is carried off in the milk. Sheep require nitrogen, potash, etc, for the wool and the yolk that accompanies it, so that the manure of sheep, also, does not quite contain all of the fertilizing material in the food.
 Fattening steers gain in weight but the increase is almost wholly tallow, and there is not nitrogen, phosphoric acid or potash in that, so the steer gives practically all of the fertiliztng ele- ments in his excrement The growing pig, like the young of other animals, takes out of the food fertilizing ele- ments for his frame and muscle, but when grown takes out very little, for the same reason that the fattening steer takes little. In all cases, how ever, the amount of fertilizing elements extracted from the food by our farm an- finals is less than most would suppose. The bulk of the food consumed is made up of carbo-hydrates, which are burnt up in the body or converted into fat, and carbohydrates are valueless as manure We may allow that growing animals take out something like ten per cent. of the fertility from the feed, while milch COWS take out from twenty to twenty-five per cent. We have, then, a second proposition to be borne Tn mind, viz: That the amount of fertility taken out of the food varies from nothing with animals that gain nothing in weight, such as work horses and grown cattle, up to milch cows, which place from twenty to twenty-five per cent. of the fertilizing elements in the milk.
 With such small losses as these we see at once that rich manure depends mainly upon rich feed. and we begin to understand why it is that English farm CTS buy so much of our oil-cake to feed instead of corn, when we learn that ton of oil-cake contains about ninety pounds of nitrogen, twenty-nine pounds of potash and nearly forty pounds of phosphoric acid, while ton of corn con- tains only thirty-three pounds of nitro gen, seven of potash and twelve of phospheric acid. Eastern farmers buy nitrogen at about sixteen cents pound, potash at three and one-halt or four cents and phosphoric acid at seven cents and pay ou, millions of dollars annually for commercial fertilizers con taiping these elements,
 The third important point to be re- membered is that large part of the fer tility is in the urine. In general way it is fair to estimate that three-fourths of the fertilizing elements under consid- eration are in the liquids and only one- fourth in the solid excrement This be- ing true no space need be occupied in showing the importance of saving tho liquid part of the manure.