Heavy Applications

Categories: THE USE OF STABLE MANURE

When the farm supply of manure is small,

applications should be light. The manure should not be the dependence

for plant-food on a part of a field, or a single field of the farm,

under such circumstances. It is more profitable to give a light

dressing to a larger area. The manure is needed to make a fertilizing

crop grow, and a very few tons per acre can assist greatly, when

rightly used. The manure is needed to furnis bacteria to the soil, and

a small amount per acre is useful for this purpose. Always there is

temptation to use all the manure on a field convenient to the barn, and

to concentrate it on a sufficiently small area to make a good yield

sure. The loss to the farm in this method is heavy. The thin spots and

the thin fields have first right to the manure as a top-dressing, and

six tons per acre will bring larger returns per ton than twelve tons

per acre. At the Pennsylvania experiment station the land receiving ten

tons of manure per acre in the common four years' rotation of corn,

oats, wheat, and mixed clover and grass gives added returns of $1.63 a

ton, while an application of eight tons pays $1.85 a ton, and a six-ton

application brings the value per ton up to $2.41. These applications

are made twice in the four years.