"But, as you know," said Percy, "milk is the only food of young animals, and they must secure their bone food from the milk. Furthermore, the complete analysis of milk shows that it contains very considerable quantities. There are also records of digestion experiments in which less than one-half of the phosphorus in the food consumed was recovered in the total manural excrements. As a matter of fact there is a time in the life of the young mother, as with the two-year old cow, for example, when she must abstract from the food she consumes sufficient phosphorus for the nourishment of three growing animals,—her own immature body, a suckling calf, and another calf as yet unborn.
"Of course the organic matter of the soil should increase under pasturing, especially under conditions that make possible an accumulation of nitrogen; but here too the animals make no contribution toward any such accumulation. With the same growth of plants the accumulation of organic matter would be much more rapid without live stock."
"It is known absolutely but not generally that live stock destroy about two-thirds of the organic matter contained in the food they consume. With grains the proportion is higher, and with coarse forage it is lower, but as an average about two-thirds of the dry matter in tender young grass or clover or in a mixed, well-balanced ration of grain and hay is digested and thus practically destroyed so far as the production of organic matter is concerned.
"This you could easily verify yourself, Mr. West, by feeding two thousand pounds of any suitable ration, such as corn and clover hay, collecting and drying the total excrement, which will be found to weigh about seven hundred pounds, if it contains no higher percentage of moisture than was contained in the two thousand pounds of food consumed.
"Of course one should not forget that the liquid excrement contains more nitrogen and more potassium than the solid, and that much of this can be saved and returned to the land by use of plenty of absorbent bedding, and in pasturing there is no danger of any loss from this source."
"That is one great trouble with us," said Mr. West. "We never have as much bedding as we could use to advantage, and it is altogether too expensive to permit us to think of buying straw."
"Probably it would be much less expensive for you to buy ground limestone and then use good alfalfa hay for bedding," said Percy. "I mean exactly what I say," he continued. "Of course I do not advise you to use good alfalfa hay in that way, but it would be a cheap source of very valuable bedding, and it would make an extremely valuable manure. However, I should not hesitate to make liberal use of partially spoiled alfalfa hay for bedding, and you are quite likely to have more or less such hay; for under favorable conditions, such as you can easily have with your soil and climate, alfalfa comes on with a rush in the spring, and often the first crop should be cut before the weather is suitable for making hay. There should be very little or no delay at this time, because the first cutting should be removed in order that it may be out of the way of the second crop, which comes forward still more rapidly under normal conditions.
"Some of our Illinois farmers make strenuous objection to taking care of an alfalfa field that produces $50 worth of the richest and most valuable hay, because it interferes too much with the proper care of a $25 corn crop, which they somehow feel requires and deserves all their time and attention.
"Some of our Virginia farmers have sent to Illinois for their seed corn," said Mr. West; "and they report very good results as a rule, especially on land that has been kept up. On our poor land I think the native corn does better than the Western seed."
"Perhaps that is because it is used to it," suggested Percy, "used to making the struggle for itself on poor land. Fighting for all it gets, so to speak. You know the high-bred animals cannot hold their own with the scrubs when it comes to pawing the snow off the dead wild grass for a living in the winter, as cattle must do sometimes on the plains of the Northwest.