Licking Valley courier. [volume] (West Liberty, Ky.) 19??-current, 1913-11-20
Farmer S Corner.
Getting the Most 0ut
Of the Farm Manure.

in the fall after the busy crop
ping season is over to clean the
manure and litter out of the
horse and cow stalls, and the
cattle, hog, and sheep sheds,
and to haul out the remnants Of
old straw stacks and the tramp
ed-down and rotting material
surrounding them. All such ma
terial should be scattered on the
land and now is the time to do it.
The winter feeding season will
soon be here and this means the
accumulation of large amount
of manure, which if correctly
saved and applied is exceedingly
valuable. Every hundred pounds
of stable manure is worth 10 to
Is cents, every ton from $500 to
$500. The liquid is more valu-
able than the solid and should
therefore be saved by the use Of
ample bedding material.
Improper handling of manure
results in great loss. Careful
tests have shown that it loses
half its value in six months if
exposed to the weather in the
ordinary manure pile. Care must
be taken to prevent heating,
teaching and waste of the urine.
Most of this loss is prevented
when stock, such as cattle and
mules, are fed in sheds, the ma
nure being tightly compacted by
the tramping of the stock, which
excludes the air and prevents
heating, the urine being saved
by abundant bedding, and the
sheltered situation preventing
teaching by rains.
On account of sanitary consid-
erations manure cannot be al.
lowed thus to accumulate in the
dairy barn, in which case it
should be removed to a shed OF
covered pit to prevent loss. 1t
pays to provide such protection
for the COW manure, but if the
dairyman does not have a shed
or pit the manure should not be
allowed to accumulate, but
should be regularly hauled away
and scattered.
One advantage of stock farm
ing is that it furnishes a supply
-oEmanure. The stock. fas....eI
keeps most of his farm in grass,
hay and forage crops, and this
that plant food is kept in the soil
and the land is prevented from
washing. He carefully saves
and applies the manure and his
land grows more productive each
year. Good crops cannot be
grown without manuring the
land in some way-either by
commercial fertilizers, green
manure crops. CT stable manure,
and for Kentucky farms stable
manure is by far the most profit
able means of fertilizing.
The writer in his own farm
practice has hauled and scattered
many hundreds of loads of stable
manure. Much of this was
placed on washed, thin and gul-
lied land, and on this land to-day
are growing rank sods of grass.
Kentucky farmers have in the
past failed sadly in making the
most of their stable manure. On
thousands of farms are fields
that have been cropped for gen.
erations without the application
of a single forkful of manure.
With proper attention given to
fertilization, with stable litter
supplemented by the rational use
of ground limestone and ground
phosphate rock, and with good
rotation systems the crop yield
Of the state could be doubled in
the next generation.
Undoubtedly our farmers will
find this work highly profitable.
In a recent address in Kentucky,
DR.. c. G. Hopkins, of Illinois,
said, There is no investment
which an honest man can make
which will pay so high returns as
time and money spent judicions-
ly in land improvement" and it
migth be added that there is no
method Of soil improvement
available to Kentucky farmers
so sure as the hauling and scat.
tering Of stable manure, and
now is the time to do it.
w. d. NICHOLS,
Dairy Department College of