The progressive farmer and the cotton plant., 1905-02-21
APPLYING MANURE TO THE LAND.

frozen sufficient to admit the manure spreader
and wagon on the fields, we have been broad
casting considerable manure on the rye fields and
the crimson clover fields. The rye will be used
for green pasturage in the spring, and the crimson
clover fields will be cut for hay.
There has been more or less discussion as to
the proper manner of annlving barn-yard manure.
Perhaps all of us have our preferences, and may
be we are somewhat prejudiced in favor of one
method or another. There is one thing we should
consider: that is, the most practical way of apply
ing homemade manures. We are making a good
deal of it. One can readily see that one hundred
head of cattle, ten horses and mules and one hum
dred head of hogs accumulate a good deal of farm
yard manure during the winter season. Of course
this is just what we want. The soils in the middle
South to-day are more in need of stable manure
than almost anything else. Surely stable manure
and the leguminous CROPS for summer and winter
are as important things to consider in connection
with our agricultural operations as anything else
before us.
Of course there are advantages and disadvan-
tages to the broadcasting of manure during the
winter season, but the practical phase of the ques-
ton must appeal to the wide-awake farmer. lie
one permits the stable manure to rot in the barn
yard, fermentation will occur, and then the con-
tinual rotting that will follow will decrease the
amount. Now we know that when one apple rots
in a bin it causes another apple to rot. Should it
not follow in the same way that if we have stable
manure out on the soil rotting, it. will cause the
soil to rot to a certain extent? And what is soil
making but soil rotting? This is simply the chang
ing of stored up fertility into forms which plants
can utilize for food.
Now the surface dressing of such crops as
tremely beneficial through the mulching effect,
as well as in the plant food which it brings to
the soil. When such dressings are applied in the
winter and early spring and spread over the sur
face while the soil is yet wet, the saving in soil
moisture which is thus brought about exerts a
highly beneficial effect upon the growing plants.
protecting the ground from too rapid drying until
they are well rooted. The common objection to
surface dressing with manure is that a large per
cent of fertilizing elements pass off into the air.
But, we must realize that this is a mistake when
we remember that the only one of these elements
that can possibly pass off as a gas is nitrogen,
and the greater part of this goes off as the result
of identification, a process that will not take
place in the open air, and so this objection is
without foundation. There is really a good deal
less loss of nitrogen in the open field than when
stored in the barn-yard or field.
Another advantage of considerable Importance
is that of utilizing labor during the winter months
when there is no great amount of work to be
done. Where the hauling of manure is postponed.
naturally in the spring time there is always a
great deal of work to be done, and more labor is
then required to give proper. attention, conse-
quently the work is either less efficiently done or
at a greater cost. Where manure is coarse the
application should be made on lots that will be
pastured in the spring and followed with the
pillow for corn. The finer kind of stable manure