THE BULL FOR A DAIRY HERD.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 264, 26 March 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE BULL FOR A DAIRY HERD.

In the course of a paper which ho contributed some time ago to the Bath and West England Agricultural Society, Professor Sheldon, the well-known English dairy expert, gave some very suggestive advico regarding the selection of bulls for use in dairy fcerds. After remarking that there was no excuse now-a-days for a man who sent his cows to "scrubby," inferior bulls, he went on:— Plenty of well-descended bulls arc to bo bad at prices within the roach of any man who can afford to keep cattle at all not necessarily pedigree, herd-book bulls, but well-bred beasts whoso ancestors bad tho reputation of being good dairy stock. A bull is none the better for having a pedigree or for being in tho herd-book ; there are advantages therein if the bull himself is what every bull ought to be, viz., free from all kinds of disease or weakness,.organic or otherwise, free from forcing and pampering, from the curse of impotency, and from, physical defects. I have known great mistakes committed by the purchase of handsome bulls at fancy prices—funny, that is to say from a tenant farmer's point of view—bulls that were glorious to look at, but ruined in constitution, or at all events in the reproductive organs, by tho vicious system of forcing which has been too common iu pedigree circles, and which everywhere would be far more " honoured in the breach than in the observance," An old friend of mine, now gathered to his fathers, a prosperous farmer iu the Peak of Derbyshire, some twenty years ago had tho lest unpedigreed herd of dairy cows it was ever my good fortune to see, carefully bred by himself and his father for scores of years on the same farm. The land was sound and good, situated on carboniferous limestone, and at a considerable elevation and was, for six months out of twelve, well exposed to what tho immortal Shak.speare would have called " a nipping and an eager air." In his declining years, when judgment and self-reliance weo-e presumably becoming less vigorous than of yore, my friend was persuaded by a sporting relative to invest in a high priced good looking, blue,bloodcd pedigree bull

—a thing ho never had done, and never of lii's own free will would have done. The result was most unfortunate, and in a senee disastrous, for that bull greatly—and wholly for the worse—chunked tho character of that famous old herd of cows. Tho bull and hi* offspring were too "in sch "for the climate—hi* breeding and rearing made him so, and hi-delicacy was transmitted to the c lives which he sired. I have no hesitation in saying that a farmer of tho type of my friend, beforo he had dabbled in a strain of bovine blood ■which he did not understand, is tho right man to go to for a bull —a farmer whose herd has been carefully bi'i-d under the luastei'b iyo, bred for milk, flesh, constitution, and symmetry, during a long spell of years, and who his not pampered his stock for thow, or raised them after the manner of plants in a conservatory. No objection ought to be taken to the bull beiug a pedigree animal, provided ho possesses the necessary physical qualifications. On the contrjry, these qualifications beinsr assured, h is distinctly an advantage that tho bull should have been entered in the lurd-bcoU. HOW MONEY TS WASTED IN MANURING. RECENT EXPERIMENTS ON DENITRIFICATION. In the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England for the September quarter appears an interesting article on "Recent Experiments on Denitrificatiou," by Professor Somervillc. Experiments made on the Continent have demonstrated that the beneficial properties of some of the most expensive manures (nitrate of soda particularly) are completely neutralised through chemical action when applied with farmyard manure, and through lack of this knowledge the farmer may not only be wasting his substance in apply r manure but even receiving actually less in crop returns than would be the case did he not manure at all. The following is a short summary of the article referred to: — Notwithstanding the high position that artificial manures now take in the estimation of farmers in all parts of the -world, it cannot be said that they have done anything to displace the use of farmyard manure, which must still be regarded as our most general and important fertiliser. Artificials find their legitimate place as sources of plant food on areas that the available supply of home-made manure is insufficient to dress. So important is the part played by farmyard manure in modern agriculture that it is a matter of surprise that a greater amount of scientific attention has not been devoted to investigating methods by which it may be best conserved and utilised. The German Agricultural Society has recently turned its attention to the subject, and has enlisted the services of a number of distinguished scientists for the work. Although the investigations arc still in progress, they have already furnished results of such a startling character that, -whether we accept them as practically applicable or not, we arc at least forced to give them serious attention. The most valuable constituent of farmyard manure is undoubtedly the nitrogen, and it is chiefly with nitrogen that investigators have so far dealt. This substance exists in the mixed mass that we call farmyard manure, partly in the solid fteces, partly iu the liquids, and partly in the litter. Of the four forms of nitrogen in dung, that present as albuminoids is extremely slow iu its action, and probably but little of it is ever assimilated by plants at all. The other three forms (ammonia, nitric acid and amides) are easily appropriated by' plants, the ammonia and nitric acid being of equal value with nitrogeu iu the form of sulphate of ammonia and nitrate of soda. The nitrogen in urine is in the form of urea, a substance which passes with great rapidity iuto carbonate of ammonia and is practically as available as sulphate of ammonia, although uo doubt more liable to waste. ACTION OF DUNG ON OTHER NITROGENOUS SUBSTANCES. When various samples of pure horse, cow and ox dung were employed for supplying nitrogen to plants cultivated in pots tilled with soil that contained abundance of phosphoric acid and potash, the results were of a most unexpected character. Iu the case of oats, where no nitrogeu was applied the yield was 44.82 grammes of grain and straw; when 1.50 grammes of nitrogen iu the form of nitrate of soda was applied the yield was 128*37 grammes—an increase amounting to 186 per cent. When, however, 2.25 grammes of nitrogen derived from two different samples of horse dung, cow dung, and ox dung, respectively, were used, yields varying from 35-91 to 46*80 grammes only were obtained. This experiment was repeated with white mustard, and practically concordant results obtained. In these cases not only had no nitrogen been appropriated by the plants from the dung, hut it was even found that the plants upon the dunged plots contained less of this element than the plants grown without added nitrogeu. Even assuming that the albuminoid nitrogen in dung is absolutely inoperative, there still remained an appreciable amount of ammoniacal and amide nitrogen which, if applied alone, would certainly have produced au iucrcase iu the crop. It was also found that whereas 075 grammes of nitrogeu in the forms of nitrogen and urea respectively were capable of more than doubling the yield when applied to the soil without dung, their action was very much less -when they were added to soil that contained dung. A series of calculations and experiments showed that from 12 to 47 per cent, of the nitrogeu in nitrate of soda was dissipated through contact with the various forms of dung in the soil, and the loss was greatest when the largest quantity of dung was used. Iu another very extensive and thorough experiment, when nitrate of soda was used alone to the extent of two and four grammes of nitrogen per pot, the nitrogen recovered in the crop increase was 77 per cent, and 59 per ceut. respectively; wheu fresh horse dung, containing two grammes of nitrogen was used, it produced 9 - l grammes less yield than unmauured plots, and the produce also contained less nitrogen. HOW DOES DUNG CAUSE WASTE OP NITROGEN ? This part of the subject has been dealt with by several experimenters, and it has been conclusively proved that nitrogeu is dissipated in the elementary form and escapes into the air, such dissipation being also proved to be due to tho action of bacteria. There appears to bo no escaping, from the conclusion that nitrates, whether naturally present in the soil or manure, or wheu added in so-called artificial manure, are rapidly destroyed by organisms which arc very abundant in dung, and are also present, though to a much less extent, in soil. Straw appears to be an especially active medium for the creation of these organisms, for where comparisons were made with mixtures of urine and dung containing variable quantities of straw, it was found that the crop was least and the loss of nitrogen greatest, in the mixture that contained most straw. Well-rotted, or '•humified," manure does not have so rapid an effect in causing denitrificatiou as fresh dung. It may be pointed out that, although great loss of nitrogen, combined aud iu the elementary form, takes place in dung-heaps, the loss is almost ontircly confined to the nitrogen of tho urea; the albuminoid nitrogen of the solid fieccs and straw beiug dissipated to a very slight extent. As, however, it is only the nitrogen of the liquids that is of much value, the fact that that element is comparatively stable in the solids cannot prove a source of much satisfaction to farmers. REFERENCE TO ENGLISH RESULTS. Professor SomervilJe, in coueludiug his article, says : —" Year after year, we in the North of England have failed to obtain any increase of crop, worthy of practical attention, wheu artificials were used with dung, aud indeed the artificials have sometimes POSITIVELY DEPRESSED THE YIELD. These results were generally believed to bo due to the fact that au average dressing of farmyard manure offered to crops as much nourishment as they could assimilate, aud that supplementary applications of artificials were therefore inoperative. Now, however, a flood of light is let in on the subject, and it is evident that this is due to the fact that the denitrifying organisms so abundant in dung instantly attack the nitrate of soda aud dissipate the nitrogen in the elementary form. Hence wo have an explanation of the comparative lack of action that has in many English experiments attended the use of sulphate of ammonia, bonemeal, dissolved hones, and other nitrogenous manures when added to dung. And not only have nitrogenous manures failod to act when applied in this way, but precisely similar results have been got with purely phospatic and potussio

manures. ... It seems to me that this explains why, when experimenting with 12 tons of dung per acre, wo found that in 1893 the average crop of swedes on nine farms in Northumberland was 2cwt. per acre heavier with 2-Jcwt. of superphosphate than when we used newt, of that substance as a supplement totlioduug. In 1894, on eleven farms in Durham, we obtained an average crop of swedes, which was greater by 1-lewt. per acre when the smaller dressiug of the same substance was similarly used. In IS!)."), on the average of nine farms in Cumberland, Durham and Northumberland, the crop of swedes was Jcwt. per acre heavier by the use of .aewt. as compared with Tiewt. of superphosphate ; and in the same year, on the same farms, 2-jewt. of dissolved bones produced a crop that was •lewt. per acre, heavier than that grown by a double quantity of the same manure. In all these cases the artificial manures were used with equal dressings of farmyard manure, aud it is only under such conditions that they have produced these auomalous results." WHAT THE EXPERIMENTS HAVE PROVED. The importance of the facts demonstrated by the German experiments and English practice alluded to above, cannot be too deeply impressed upon the minds of the farmers. They appear to us to be quite conclusive, the field trials iu England so thoroughly supporting the deductions of the German scientists, and although the Germans are pi'osecuting further experiments and researches, enough has already been brought to light to show the wastefulness of using a combination of artificial manures ami dung. To sum up : It. has been proved that moist, well-rotted dung is an excellent manure by itself ; and that Fresh farmyard manure, in combination with commercial fertilisers not only lias no good effect, but may be said to 1)0 POSITIVELY INJURIOUS TO ANY CROP TO WHICH IT SCAY BIS APPLIED. There would Oms, in the latter case not only be a loss of the value of the- manure, but a second loss by the diminished yield from any crop to which it was applied.