Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1890-01-16
ABOUT MANURE.
The Relative Value of Horse and Cow
Manure Discussed.

! are generally Kept on the farm, the
manure from the former will be the
most valuable. do not feel, however,
like dropping the subject, says con.
tributor to the Breeders Gazette, with
such brief answer, for there should be
a reason given for the answer when pos
sible, and if one will only follow up the
subject opened by this question he will
gain light upon one of the most impor-
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 nSttle what has been
J 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 kind 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
stuffs, grains and concentrated foods
like cotton-seed meal and oil-meal con-
tain the greatest amount of these three
fertilizing constituents, and straw con-
tains the least. Starch and woody mat
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-
ton 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
IDENTIFY give out in the eXcrement all the
fertilizers in the food supplied him.
The colt, or horse gaining in weight,
evidently retains some of these elements
in the 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 fertilizing elements
supplied in the food, since 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 fertilizing 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
imals is less than most would suppose.
up of carbohydrates, 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
mich COWS take out from twenty to
twenty-five per cent. We have, then,
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 mich cows, which place from
twenty to twenty-five per cent. of the |
elements in the milk.
With such small losses as these We
mainly upon rich feed, and we begin to
why it is that English farm |
ers buy so much of our oil-cake to feed |
instead of corn, when we learn that a |
ton of oil-cake contains about ninety |
pounds of nitrogen, twenty-nine pounds |
IF potash and nearly forty pounds OF |
acid, while ton of corn con- |
5ains only thirtythree pounds of nitro
zen, seven of potash and twelve of |
ohosph.ric acid. Eastern farmers buy |
nitrogen at about sixteen cents pound,
potash at three and one-half or foul |
cents and phosphoric acid at seven
cents, and pay out millions of dollars
for commercial fertilizers con-
aiming these elements.
The third important point to be re-
is that large part of the fer
,ility is in the urine. In general way
t is fair to estimate that three-fourths
If the fertilizing elements under consid-
grafton are in the liquids and only one
ourth in the solid excrement. This be-
ng true no space need be occupied in
showing the Importance of saving the
liquid part of the manure.