Farm Gardening with Hints on Cheap Manuring.
by Anonymous.
PREFACE.
Farmers in the thickly populated Eastern and Middle States, or, in fact, east of the Mississippi River, cannot grow grains nor fatten beeves with the same profit as before the opening of the great West.
Dairying still returns fair profits, but there is a widespread demand for cash crops adapted to farm culture, especially where railroads furnish quick access to towns and cities.
In response to this demand, we beg to offer a short list of farm vegetables that can be grown with greater profit than grain, with hints about growing them.
There is no real line dividing the vegetables of the market garden from those of the farm garden, but it may be a.s.sumed in a somewhat arbitrary way that those which do not yield at the gross rate of $250 per acre per year will not pay for the intense culture of high-priced land, although they will pay handsome profits in broad-acred operations under horse culture.
Before offering a list of money crops to farmers we shall have a word to say in the following pages about economic manuring. Larger cash receipts and smaller cash expenditures will result in better bank balances.
JOHNSON & STOKES.
PHILADELPHIA, January 1, 1898.
CHAPTER I.
MAKING THE SOIL RICH.
Everybody understands that the soil becomes impoverished by continued cropping, if no return be made in the form of manure or fertilizer.
This impoverishment is sometimes real, while sometimes it is more apparent than real, owing to the exhaustion of only one or two elements of fertility.
Farmers have learned a great deal about agricultural chemistry since the introduction of artificial fertilizers. They know that while plants demand many things for their growth, there are but three elements which are in danger of being exhausted in ordinary cropping.
These three things are nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash.
=Lime.=--Lime is used on the land not for its direct results as a fertilizer, but because it has the ability to break up combinations already existing in the soil and set free the plant food that previously was in an insoluble form. Lime sometimes produces almost marvelous results; at other times no visible effects whatever. Hence, it is not a fertilizer, though in actual practice it is sometimes a fertilizing agent of great value. Land that has been much manured or long in sod is likely to be benefited by lime.
Artificial manures, on the other hand, furnish real plant food in soluble form, and may be expected to produce crops invariably, year after year, if the soil be sufficiently moist. When a fertilizer contains nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash it is said to be complete. When any element is missing the fertilizer is said to be incomplete. Ground bone, wood ashes, South Carolina rock, kainit, etc., are examples of incomplete fertilizers.
=Barnyard Manure.=--Barnyard manure is the best of all known fertilizers. Not only is it complete in character, but it has the highly valuable property of bulk. It is rich in humus or humus-forming materials. It opens and ventilates the soil, and improves its mechanical condition to a remarkable degree. Humus is a name for decaying organic matter.
American market gardeners deem it entirely safe to use fifty to seventy-five tons of barnyard manure to the acre of ground in their intensive cultural operations. American farmers seldom apply more than ten or fifteen tons of such manure to the acre in the open field.
The manufacture of artificial fertilizers had its origin in the fact that cultivators could not get enough manure from natural sources, and, hence, were compelled to go into the market and buy nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash in other forms.
=Closer Economy.=--With the increase of compet.i.tion and consequent fall of prices a closer economy in cost of production is necessary.
Prices have fallen most in respect to commodities that will bear long-distance freight transit and less in respect to the more perishable products of the soil. Hence, farmers have widely turned attention to small fruits and vegetables for money crops, instead of grains, and are now studying how to fertilize these crops in the most effective and economical manner.
It is very evident that while great quant.i.ties of fertility are demanded by the new crops, there is no such margin of profit in their culture as to warrant wasteful methods, and no losses of home-produced fertility can be tolerated.
=As to Saving Manure.=--A penny saved is a penny earned. A half ton of manure saved is a dollar earned; and, conversely, a half ton of manure wasted is a dollar wasted.
In many American barnyards much of the manure is lost, partly by leaching and partly by escape of ammonia. It is estimated that as much as a third of the natural manure produced in this country is practically thrown away.
The Cornell Station has announced that a pile of horse manure exposed to the weather will lose half of its value in six months. The Kansas Station reaches nearly the same conclusion about farmyard manure.
Manure stored under cover may lose from 14 to 30 per cent. of its nitrogen (ammonia); and as this element is the most expensive of all to buy, it is evident that the loss is a very serious one, and one that should be avoided if possible.
=General Principles of Storage.=--Having pointed out the fact that on many farms there is a loss of a large amount of excellent manure, it is now in order to name a remedy. The compa.s.s of this book is so limited that it is necessary to go straight to the point, omitting a detailed account of the chemical processes involved.
The best-known method of keeping all the manure produced by farm animals is storage under a closed shed, supplemented with chemical preservatives. The shed need not cover the barnyard, but merely the manure pile. The preservatives cost little money, and eventually go to the soil in the form of excellent fertilizers. Not a cent paid for them need be lost.
The manure shed should be large enough to work in with comfort; large enough to permit the heap or heaps of manure to be turned, worked over and shifted from place to place. A clay or earth floor will answer every purpose, and the shed may be of the cheapest character, provided it will turn the rain. The floor of the manure shed should slope inward from all directions, and the drainage around the shed should be outward, so that no rain-water or snow-water can enter.
In theory, it may be best to put fresh manure on the land as quickly as possible. All leaching is then received by the soil, and little is lost, except through the air.
In practice, this plan is not always a good one. It costs more to make ten trips to the field than one trip, and valuable time is wasted. It is quite out of the question to haul out manure every day or even every week. Besides, it is necessary in actual practice, especially in gardening or truck farming, to cover a whole piece of ground at one time, so that it may be plowed and seeded for the coming crop. The ground is usually available only a short time before this preparation, having, perhaps, been occupied by something else. It is desirable, moreover, that the manure when applied shall be ready for immediate service as plant food, which is not the case with the raw product.
Fresh manure is but sparingly digestible by plant roots. Quicker cash results will be secured by applying prepared manure to the soil than by applying the product fresh from the stable.
The manure shed has already been mentioned. A few dollars will build it. Sometimes a half barrel is sunken in the centre of the manure shed, and the drainage from the manure heaps collected there, and returned to the tops of the heaps. It is occasionally necessary to add water, when turning manure, to secure the desired degree of dampness and a gentle fermentation. This fermentation will cause the litter to fall to pieces, and will convert it into quickly-available plant food.
No one who has never tried it will expect the generous heaps which will follow systematic and persevering efforts to acc.u.mulate and stack up the available manure materials on any farm.
=Preservatives.=--The best-known common preservatives of manure in storage are gypsum, kainit and acid phosphate.
Gypsum or land plaster holds ammonia, and is thus of the highest value as a preservative. Gypsum must be moist to be effective, and, hence, should be used regularly upon the fresh manure.
Kainit, which is a low-grade sulphate of potash, checks fermentation, and hence prevents loss of ammonia. It contains much salt, and attracts and holds moisture. It should not be used under the feet of animals.
Acid phosphate contains much gypsum, and unites with ammonia that would otherwise escape.
The Geneva (N. Y.) Station recommends the use of one of the following per day:
Per Horse. Per Cow. Per Pig. Per Sheep.
Pounds. Pounds. Ounces. Ounces.
Gypsum 1-1/2 1-3/4 4-1/2 3-1/2 Acid phosphate 1 1-1/8 3 2-1/2 Kainit 1-1/8 1-1/4 4 3-1/4
The advantage of using kainit and acid phosphate are that they add potash and phosphoric acid respectively, in which barnyard manure is likely to be deficient. In some soils the potash will be preferable; in others, phosphoric acid will do more good.
=Value of Manure of Each Kind of Animal.=--It has been figured out that the average value of horse manure per year is $27 per animal; cattle, $19; hogs, $12; and sheep, $2. But these are not the only sources of manure on the farm. The hen-house will annually yield manure to the value of 25 to 50 cents per fowl, if intelligently cared for. The outhouse will produce fertility to the amount of $10 to $50 per year, according to the size of the family, the precautions as to loss by leaching, and the care given. The kitchen slops, including the sc.r.a.ps, are worth $10 to $25 per year, if properly composted. The wood ashes have a distinct and high fertilizing value; but not in the hen-house, where they are worse than wasted. And even coal ashes can be turned to account.
Professor Roberts has suggested $250 per year as a conservative estimate of the value of the manure produced during seven winter months on a farm carrying four horses, twenty cows, fifty sheep and ten pigs. The estimated value may be made much higher in cases where farmers are willing to use thought and labor in preparation and preservation of home-made manures.
=Solid Manure and Liquid Manure.=--The urine is the most valuable portion of the excretion of animals, according to the tables of the agricultural chemists. It is especially rich in nitrogen, and, hence, its strong odor under fermentation. It is also rich in potash. Its place is on the manure heap, not in a ditch leading to a brook. If it collects in quant.i.ties beyond the absorbing power of the manure pile, it should go on the compost heap or else be diluted and at once put upon the land.
=When to Fertilize.=--The land is a good bank in which to deposit money in the form of manure; but there are certain portions of the year when the land bank declares no dividends. It is safe to put manure upon an unfrozen soil at any time, but the best, the quickest, and the largest results are obtained by manuring during the growing season, preferably just before planting the crop. Small applications, often repeated, are preferable to large, though rare, applications.
Plants, like animals, consume small amounts of food each day, and cannot take a year"s food at a single meal.
=Humus.=--Humus, often referred to by agricultural writers, is a name for decaying organic matter in the soil. Green crops turned under, gra.s.s roots, stubble, leaves, long manure, etc., form humus. The term is a comprehensive one. Humus is a dark-colored substance, abundant in all rich ground. A lump of manure that has been lying in the ground for a year or two has become, practically, a ma.s.s of humus.