Chemical fertilizer

“ In case of the composts with yard manure, guano and other animal matters, the alkali, ammonia, formed in the fermentation, greatly promotes chemical change, and it would appear that this substance, on some accounts, excels all others in its efficacy. The other alkaline bodies, potash, soda and lime, are however scarcely less active in this respect, and being at the same time, of themselves, useful fertilizers, they also may be employed in preparing muck composts. ”

“ It is entirely feasible and economical to apply concentrated chemical fertilizers containing the first three elements so that their lack will not constitute a limit to size of crops harvested. In many cases it is necessary to apply chemical fertilizers to get satisfactory yields, even where natural manures are available and can be applied as well. ”

“ With radioactive phosphorus-32 scientists found that as much as 50 to 70 per cent of the phosphorus in a plant came from the fertilizer during the first two or three weeks of growth.
Do Plants Absorb Through Roots Only?
Fertilizer applied to soil is largely wasted because it is either bound by soil particles or is washed out of the root 5 zone. If chemical elements could go directly into leaves and bypass the wastefulness of soils, a tremendous saving would result. ”

“ Composition of Plant not a Guide.—It has been pointed out that a chemical analysis of a soil is not a dependable guide in the selection of a fertilizer. Years ago the theory was advanced that the analysis of the crops desired should be a guide, but it has proved nearly worthless. This theory does not take into account the soil's supply of plant-food. Moreover, a certain crop may demand a large supply of an element at a time of the year when the soil's supply is inactive. The need of nitrogen for grass in the early spring, before nitrification in the soil is active, is an illustration. ”

“ That is very wise, because onions do especially well coming after a crop for which the land was heavily fertilized. Onions like moisture of soil, too. If the soil is not rich enough, nitrate of soda may be added. The most discouraging thing about chemical fertilizers is the fact that advertisements say to have a certain quantity for an acre of land. Few boys and girls are planting entire acres, to just one thing. ”

“ He said that it is never necessary to apply fertilizing material to any soil for the purpose of increasing the supply of plant food in that soil. He admitted that applications of fertilizers sometimes produce increased crop yields, but that the effect was due to the power of the fertilizer to destroy the toxic substances excreted by the plants, and this is really the principal effect of potash, phosphates, and nitrates, and also of farm manure and green manures. ”

“ In the light soils stable-manure wastes too rapidly because, for one reason, at the extremes of high temperature, oxidation and decay proceed with great rapidity, and the volatile portions of the fertilizer are used up faster than the plant can appropriate them, so that not only are they wasted during the early periods of growth, but they are wanting at a later period when their absence may prove the failure of a crop. ”

“ There has been a disposition on the part of many farmers to regard fertilizers only as stimulants, due to the irrational use of certain materials, but a good commercial fertilizer is a carrier of some or all of the necessary elements that we find in stable manures. They may carry nitrogen, phosphoric acid, or potash,—any one or two or the three,—and the three are the constituents that usually are lacking in available forms in our soils. Examples of the best modern skill in farming may be found in the rational selection and use of commercial fertilizers. ”

“ When crop-producing power decreases, and the farmer begins to seek a commercial fertilizer to repair the loss, he finds that bone-dust or acid phosphate is serviceable. The resulting increase in yield often leads to such sole dependence upon this fertilizer that clover and manure are disregarded, the percentage of humus is allowed to drop, and finally the fertilizer is brought into disrepute. The need of phosphoric acid is so common that it is the sole plant-food in much fertilizer, and the dominant element in practically all the remainder on the market. ”

“ It is apparent that there is no article entering into common use in many of the states, and particularly the Southern states, the inspection of which is so necessary for the protection of those citizens engaged in agricultural operations, as commercial fertilizers. Certain ingredients, as ammonia or nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, make up the larger part of the value of these fertilizers; and, without the aid of scientific analysis, the amount of these ingredients cannot be ascertained, nor whether the fertilizer sold is of a uniform grade. ”

“ Well, to some extent they injure the soil because they tend to destroy the limestone and increase the acidity of the soil, and also because they contain more or less manufactured land-plaster and thus serve as soil stimulants; but the chief point to keep in mind concerning the use of the common so-called complete commercial fertilizer is that they are too expensive to permit their use in sufficient quantities to positively enrich the soil. ”

“ Commercial fertilizers generally contain nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash in amounts varying with the requirements of the soil. Wheat requires a large amount of phosphorus and quickly exhausts the ground of that food stuff; a field which has supported a crop of wheat is particularly poor in phosphorus, and a satisfactory fertilizer for that land would necessarily contain a large percentage of phosphorus. The fertilizer to be used in a soil depends upon the character of the soil and upon the crops previously grown on it. ”

“ The land that grows heavy clover in a close rotation, or receives all the stable manure, may need neither nitrogen nor potash, while another field, hard-run by timothy and corn, may need a complete fertilizer. When a careful fertilizer test on land of only average productive power has been made, the owner has some definite knowledge of his soil that enables him to give more intelligent treatment to all his fields than was possible before the test had been made. ”

“ It is important that large lumps of fertilizer, especially muriate of potash and nitrate of soda, do not fall near the crowns of the plants; otherwise the plants may be seriously injured. It is a general principle, also, that it is best to use more sparingly of fertilizers than of tillage. The tendency is to make fertilizers do penance for the sins of neglect, but the results do not often meet one’s expectations. ”

“ It is hoped that the increase in crop yield, resulting from the use of the microbic soil fertilizer, will amount to from 5 per cent, to even 50 per cent., depending primarily upon the condition of the soil. Rich soil naturally requires no fertilizer of any kind. ”

“ The seed may be either drilled or broadcast, but drilling will give more uniform stands.
Fertilizers
When the crop is planted on extremely poor soils, good stands and growth cannot be expected. Such soil conditions may be improved by the application of manure and phosphate fertilizers or by turning [Pg 4] under such crops as cowpeas, soybeans, or lespedeza. In many soils of low fertility the use of 50 to 100 pounds per acre of a nitrogen fertilizer will encourage early seedling growth and establishment. ”

“ We do not buy nitrogen in a pure state. We buy a ton of material to get the needed 260 pounds of nitrogen. Thus it is with nitrate of soda, sulphate of ammonia, acid phosphate, muriate and sulphate of potash, and all other fertilizer materials. As freight must be paid upon the entire ton, it usually pays best to select materials that run high in percentage of plant-food. It is possible to get very low-grade fertilizers that have not had any foreign material added by the manufacturer. An acid phosphate may be poor in phosphoric acid because low-grade rock was used in its manufacture. ”

“ The supply of phosphoric fertilizers is also endangered through the stoppage of imports of phosphate rock (nearly 1,000,000 tons a year) as well as the material from which to make sulphuric acid; also, through the reduction in the production of the iron furnaces of the country, from the slag of which over 2,000,000 tons of so-called Thomas phosphate flour was produced, will involve a big reduction in the make of that valuable fertilizer. Thus, there is a lack of horses, of fertilizers, and of the guiding hand of man. ”

“ In this way, so far as our present knowledge warrants us to affirm, organic matters, decaying in the soil, continuously yield portions of their nitrogen in the forms of ammonia and nitric acid for the nourishment of plants.
The farmer who skillfully employs as a fertilizer a peat containing a good proportion of nitrogen, may thus expect to get from it results similar to what would come from the corresponding quantity of nitrogen in guano or stable manure. ”

“ The exception to this rule may be found in the case of small applications to cold and inert soils to force growth in the first few weeks of a plant's life. It is difficult to see how 80 or 100 pounds of fertilizer can affect an acre of land one way or the other, but experience teaches that such an amount can do so in respect to young plants. Phosphoric acid has peculiar power in forcing some development of roots in a small plant, and a small application in the drill or row may help the plants to gain ability to forage for themselves. ”

“ Fermentation cannot drive it off, and when applied to the soil it is tightly held. Practically no phosphoric acid is found in drainage waters. Eight tons of manure thus reënforced would contain the same amount of plant-food as a ton of fertilizer having 4 per cent nitrogen, 5 per cent phosphoric acid, and 4 per cent potash. The addition of the 50 pounds of acid phosphate per ton does not bring the phosphoric acid content up as high relatively as in most commercial fertilizers, but it helps. ”

“ Many growers do not depend upon commercial fertilizers, but merely apply from 200 to 300 pounds to each acre as a supplement to the organic matter and natural fertility of the soil. Others apply from 300 to 1,000 pounds, according to the condition of the soil, while a few growers use a ton to the acre. The general rule is to apply the fertilizer in the row where the crop is to be grown, but where large quantities are used it should be distributed at least ten days before planting and thoroughly incorporated with the soil. ”

“ The nitrogen in the dried blood, tankage, fish scrap and cotton-seed meal, being organic nitrogen, must be changed by the process of nitrification to nitric acid or nitrate before it is available. They are therefore better materials to use for a more gradual and continuous feeding of crops than the nitrate of soda or sulphate of ammonia.
Scrap leather, wool waste, horn and hoof shavings are rich in nitrogen but they decay so slowly that they make poor fertilizers. They are used by fertilizer manufacturers in making cheap mixed fertilizers. ”

“ A very wet or very dry soil is known to nullify the benefit which might be expected of a fertilizer in a simply moist soil; but more than this, more than by the accident of external circumstances, it is a fact that each kind of soil has a special action of its own on fertilizers, so that if it were asserted of two soils, which, unmanured, were of equal fertility, that a given fertilizer applied to both, greatly improved the crop on one, and had little effect on the other, such a statement might not only be accepted as a fact, but an explanation might be given in general terms for such a fact. ”

“ It is a powerful source of nitrogen with significant amounts of phosphorus. Like other slaughterhouse byproducts its high cost may make it impractical to use to adjust the C/N of compost piles. Seed meals or chicken manure (chickens are mainly fed seeds) have somewhat lower nitrogen contents than animal byproducts but their price per pound of actual nutrition is more reasonable. If hoof and horn meal is not dispersed through a pile it may draw flies and putrefy. I would prefer to use expensive slaughterhouse concentrates to blend into organic fertilizer mixes. ”

“ It is impossible to lay too much emphasis on the necessity for care in the use of this fertilizer. It must not be allowed to come in contact with the leaves of the crop, or it will cause them to burn and turn brown. ”

“ It is quite apparent that in this scheme the entire field of fertilizer formulas is covered in a regular way. In addition to this formula plan other experiments are also under way to determine the influence of the different fertilizing materials, carrying the phosphate, ammonia and potash, and the influence of lime, rock phosphate, various green manuring crops, etc. The experiments are carried out in commercial orchards on several soil types and in several localities. ”

“ A peat in which nitrogen exists in as large a proportion as is found in stable or yard manure, being used in larger quantity, or being more durable in its action, may for a few seasons produce better results than the latter, merely on account of the presence of this one ingredient, it may in fact, for the soil and crop to which it is applied, be a better fertilizer than yard manure, because nitrogen is most needed in that soil, and yet for the generality of soils, or in the long run, it may prove to be an inferior fertilizer. ”