Farmer's Don't Want Garbage

ALD. GROSE TAKES ISSUE WITH ARGUS CORRESPONDENT

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Says Farmers Don't Need the Stuff, That they Cannot Afford to Get It and That It is Worthless

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Editor Argus: 

I note with pleasure an article by "Reader" in Friday's Argus. Open discussion of this sort are valuable, and if we had more of them we might have fewer white elephants like "the stone-crusher, cat-hole, and a few other institutions," of which "Reader" speaks in a wisely warning tone. Now on the matter of garbage disposal your communicant has raised the question why not give the farmer the garbage. There are several reasons. 

1. The farmer doesn't want it. Several with whom I have talked on the subject have declared they would not have it under any circumstances or for any purpose. It's foul smelling stuff and filthy; your average farmer isn't used to that sort of thing; he doesn't want to get used to it; and he doesn't have to. 

2. He doesn't need it. His own stables furnish him a large quantities of the best quality of fertilizer; if this is not sufficient for his purpose, a crop of clover or trye plowed under tones up his land more efficiently and at less expense of time and labor than could possibly be done by hauling garbage. It takes about ten loads of garbage -- meaning from three to five days teaming -- to well cover an acre; figure it out for a twenty acre field. Now an average day's plowing is reckoned two acres. Compare the figures, remembering that the plowing must be done whether the fertilizer be hauled garbage or herbage already growing on the ground. It might add interest to the calculation to know that it is not necessary to make a special seeding for the fertilizing crop; oats and clover sown in the spring yield an oat crop the same season, a crop of hay the following spring; the second growth of clover comes on and goes under as fertilizer. So two crops and the fertilizer are really obtained in the process of fertilization. 

3. He cannot afford to get it. As seen at 2, the garbage would cost the farmer a large amount of time. And just at the season when it is most essential that the garbage be removed is just the season that the farmer has the least time to collect it. Seeding, haying, and harvesting leave little room for other work; the sensible farmer is not to be imagined neglecting an eight dollar load of hay for a fifty cent load of garbage. There are now in the city loads and loads of stable-cleanings, to say nothing of ordinary garbage, and it is almost impossible to get a farmer to draw it away; he has too much else doing.

4. A large portion of all garbage is entirely unsuited to the farmer's needs. He cannot feed it to his hogs, for garbage fed hogs are in ill repute among the dealers; paper, leather, and bones do not work up well into fertilizer; and few farmers will allow night-earth upon their land under any circumstances. 

5. The farmer as a class couldn't find room for all the garbage from a city the size of Ann Arbor, supposing he had time to get it. 

The delivery by car would be feasible enough along the line but would, of course, reach but comparatively few. As to farmers paying for garbage, it is not likely when they can get the best of stable cleanings for the trouble of hauling, or, as in one instance that came under my own observation, when they can get $1.00 a load for hauling it away. 

Trusting these few points may prove of interest in the discussion, I remain

Yours sincerely, 

ALD. L. D. GROSS