“There may be some truth in this,” said I, “and yet I will hazard the prediction that in no other branch of agriculture shall we witness a more decided improvement during the next twenty-five years than on farms largely devoted to the dairy. Grain-growing farmers, like our friend the Deacon, here, who sells his grain and never brings home a load of manure, and rarely buys even a ton of bran to feed to stock, and who sells more or less hay, must certainly be impoverishing their soils of phosphates much more rapidly than the dairyman who consumes nearly all his produce on the farm, and sells little except milk, butter, cheese, young calves, and old cows.” “Bones had a wonderful effect,” said the Doctor, “on the old pastures in the dairy district of Cheshire in England.” “Undoubtedly,” I replied, “and so they will here, and so would well-rotted manure. There is nothing in this fact to prove that dairying specially robs the soil of phosphates. It is not phosphates that the dairyman needs so much as richer manure.” “What would you add to the manure to make it richer?” asked the Doctor. “Nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash,” I replied. “But how?” asked the Deacon. “I suppose,” said the Doctor, “by buying guano and the German potash salts.” “That would be a good plan,” said I; “but I would do it by buying bran, mill-feed, brewer’s-grains, malt-combs, corn-meal, oil-cake, or whatever was best and cheapest in proportion to value. Bran or mill-feed can often be bought at a price at which it will pay to use it freely for manure. A few tons of bran worked into a pile of cow-dung would warm it up and add considerably to its value. It would supply the nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, in which ordinary manure is deficient. In short, it would convert poor manure into rich manure.” “Well, well,” exclaimed the Deacon, “I knew you talked of mixing dried-blood and bone-dust with your manure, but I did not think you would advocate anything quite so extravagant as taking good, wholesome bran and spout-feed and throwing it on to your manure-pile.” “Why, Deacon,” said I, “we do it every day. I am putting about a ton of spout-feed, malt-combs and corn-meal each week into my manure-pile, and that is the reason why it ferments so readily even in the winter. It converts my poor manure into good, rich, well-decomposed dung, one load of which is worth three loads of your long, strawy manure.” “Do you not wet it and let it ferment before putting it in the pile?” “No, Deacon,” said I, “I feed the bran, malt-combs and corn-meal to the cows, pigs, and sheep, and let them do the mixing. They work it up fine, moisten it, break up the particles, take out the carbonaceous matter, which we do not need for manure, and the cows and sheep and horses mix it up thoroughly with the hay, straw, and corn-stalks, leaving the whole in just the right condition to put into a pile to ferment or to apply directly to the land.”