BUTTER VERSUS GRAIN.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1345, 18 September 1886, Page 2

BUTTER VERSUS GRAIN.

Every bushel of wheat sold from the f<«rm carries with it the riches of the soil, and instances have been known In which the value of the elements in the wheat even from a commercial standpoint, was greater than the sum obtained from the crop after deducting cost of labor of production ; and it is safe to say that such occurrences are not rare. In dairying, however, the exhaustion of the soil depends upon hew the product is sold. If the milk is sold entire, there will be more or less fertility, which must be replaced. If carried to the creameries or made Into butter on the farm, the loss Is less and I the skim milk is fed to stock. Of coarse the stock so fed will la time be sent tc market, and will cart; with them that which was grown or produced upon the the farm and feed. But the butter sold will rob the soil of nothing, unless it bo a mere fraction, as the ingredients of the butter do not exist In the soil but in the air. The fat of plants is manufactured from the carbon of the atmosphere, and when used as food is either stored in the body of the animal, made into a product or exhaled. Hence there should be credited to dairying something more than the value of the product of a farm devoted to such lulustry, and that is the returning to the soil of th'e fertilising elements taken from it. When crops of corn, wheat, oats, or grass are sold directly from the farm it is simply a matter of duration of time when the soil will become exhausted and fail to return an equivalent for the expenditure of labor bestowed upon It. —Farm and Field.