Fertiliser

“ Fertilizer for Grass.—A fertile soil will make a good sod. A thinner soil should have a liberal dressing of complete fertilizer at seeding time, and the formula that has been suggested is excellent for this purpose. If a succession of timothy hay crops is desired, the problem of maintaining fertility is wholly changed. The nitrogen supplied by the clover is soon exhausted, and the timothy sod must be kept thick and heavy until broken, or the soil will not have its supply of organic matter maintained. ”

“ One takes it for granted that some fertilizer will be used, for the plants must be normal to seed well. The three essential elements of soil fertility are nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, and to get the best results compounds of these elements must be present in proper proportions. First, available potash must be present in normal quantity although a certain excess will not be harmful. If nitrates are present in excess, however, vegetative growth will be over stimulated and seed production will be small. ”

“ Setting aside the impression gained from the dissimilarity in the so-called corn, potato, wheat, and grass fertilizers on the market, the farmer knows that the soil which is in a good state of fertility is best for any of them, and if the soil is hard-run, it should have its plant-food supply supplemented. The hard-run soil usually is lacking in available supplies of all three plant-food constituents. If a fertilizer containing 3 per cent of nitrogen, 10 per cent of phosphoric acid, and 6 per cent of potash serves the wheat well, it will serve the timothy that starts in the wheat. ”

“ Fertilizers are only part of the problem of soil fertility.
2. In this orchard any treatment that has influenced the trees at all has done so in the following order: first, the cover crops; perhaps several years later, leaf color; shortly after, branch growth and circumference increase; and last of all, yield.
3. The reason for this sequence of results is that the treatments, whether chemical fertilizers, manure, or cover crops, have influenced yields chiefly by changing the organic matter content of the soil ”

“ 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. ”

“ Another line in which very great improvement is shown is in maintaining the fertility of the soil. The old method was to exhaust the fertility of a field and then clear a new one; and it is doubtful if one farmer in a hundred could have answered the question, “Why does land become sterile after long cultivation?” for they had no conception of what the chemical elements of the soil were which are necessary to its fertility. There are two theories of fertilizing and fertility: one, that the soil is a mine to be worked out, and which will inevitably become unproductive in the process ”

“ Fertilizers.—Since the tomato is grown exclusively for its fruit, those fertilizers which induce a large growth of plant and foliage are not desirable in the production of this crop. Soils vary greatly in regard to the quantity of available plant food they contain. The use of a fertilizer is determined largely by the character, mechanical condition, and composition of the soil. If a soil is deficient in all the essential elements of plant food—nitrogen, potash, and phosphoric acid—the application of any one or even two of them will not materially influence the yield of the crop. ”

“ In growing such dry land crops as barley, beans, buckwheat or dry land rice the soil of the field is at first fitted by plowing or spading, then furrowed deeply where the rows are to be planted. Into these furrows fertilizer is placed and covered with a layer of earth upon which the seed is planted. When the crop is up, if a second fertilization is desired, a furrow may be made alongside each row, into which the fertilizer is sowed and then covered. ”

“ No commercial fertilizer would begin to be so desirable. If you can dig into the soil large amounts of weeds or other vegetable waste material, you would be proceeding along the same line, but stable manure is better on account of its greater fertilizing content. You ought to be thankful that the soil has spunk enough to grow weeds. The Immanent Creator is still doing the best he can to help you out; take a hand yourself on the same line.
Two Legumes in a Year.
I have land on which I wish to plant to fruits, and I wish to build up the soil all I can, by planting cover crops and plowing under. ”

“ Nature stored plant-food in more or less inert form and, as availability has been gained, plants have grown. Our dependence continues.
Plant Constituents.—There are a few technical terms whose use cannot be evaded in the few chapters on the use of lime and fertilizers. A plant will not come to maturity unless it can obtain for its use combinations of ten chemical elements. Agricultural land and the air provide all these elements. If they were in abundance in available forms, there would be no serious soil fertility problem. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The plant is a laboratory where life converts into nutritive matter the manure from [76] our stables and poultry-yards. A cart-load of dung becomes at the farmer’s pleasure, after passing through one sort of plant or another, a crop of peas or beans, a basket of fruit, or a loaf of bread. Hence this fertilizer is a very precious thing which nothing can replace and which must be utilized to the very utmost. The nourishment of us all depends on it. Enriched with this fertilizer, the soil produces, we will say, a first harvest of wheat. ”

“ If the amount of fertilizer is too small to distribute evenly over the plot, mix it thoroughly with a few quarts of dry earth or sand to give it more bulk and then apply it.
In the use of fertilizers it should always be remembered that small crops are not always due to lack of plant food, but may be caused by an absence of the other conditions necessary for root growth and development. The soil may not be sufficiently moist to properly supply the plants with water. ”

“ To improve and again make fertile our soils, we must restore to them the phosphorus and nitrogen which have been used up in the seventy-five or more crops that we have gathered from them. This is a herculean task but this is what confronts us and I for one, believe we can accomplish it. By the proper rotation of crops, including oats, clover, cowpeas, as well as cotton and corn, and a liberal use of barn-yard manure and cotton seed fertilizer, all of the necessary elements of plant food can be restored to our worn out soil. ”

“ When a considerable amount of fertilizer is used a better plan than buying mixed fertilizer is to buy the raw materials and mix them yourself. For example, a farmer is about to plant five acres of cabbages for the market. He finds that a certain successful cabbage grower recommends the use of fifty pounds nitrogen, fifty pounds phosphoric acid and seventy pounds potash per acre. For the five acres this will mean 250 pounds nitrogen, 250 pounds phosphoric acid and 350 pounds potash. ”

“ Fertilizers.—When a crop is fed to livestock, and all the manure is returned to the land that produced the crop without loss by leaching or fermentation, there is a return to the land of four fifths of the fertility, and a good form of organic matter is supplied. A portion of the crops cannot be fed upon the farm, or otherwise the human race would have only animal products for food. The welfare of the people demands that a vast amount of the soil's crops be sold from the farms producing them. ”

“ We have also assisted the industries to solve some of their problems of cultivation, particularly of propagation, and also the problems growing out of the maintenance of soil fertility. With a new crop, in a new environment, it is always a problem to know how to manage the soil, and this is one of the leading lines of activity in the field, at the present time. In the Bureau of Plant Industry, two offices, that of Horticulture and Pomology and that of Soil Fertility, are co-operating in the solution of the soil fertility problems in the pecan regions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Too much water may check ventilation. Poor tillage may check root development. Unless the physical conditions are right the possible effects of additional plant food in the form of fertilizers are greatly diminished. The farmer who gets the largest return from fertilizers is the one who gives greatest attention to the physical properties of the soil. He makes use of organic matter and is very thorough in his methods of tillage. Every farmer should apply to his State Experiment Station for bulletins on the subject of fertilizers. ”

“ The pretense of making a fertilizer peculiarly adapted to the potato, or to wheat, or to corn would not attract a single buyer if the public would compare the analyses of these special crop fertilizers offered by manufacturers and note their dissimilarity of composition. Any kind of a mixture may be given any kind of a name. It is the composition that counts. The farmer is in the market for nitrogen and phosphoric acid and potash, singly or combined, for a certain soil, and all he wants is to know the number of pounds he is getting, its availability, and its price per pound. ”

“ Assuming a given type of management, the question is, How much of the required nitrogen will be obtained from the legumes in the cropping system, how much from the manure, and how much must be purchased 93 in commercial fertilizers? No satisfactory cropping system can be devised at the present prices of farm products and cost of fertilizers for the production of the ordinary cereals and hay that does not include the production of some legume. Assuming a legume in the cropping scheme, the fertility of the soil may be maintained by yard manure alone or by commercial fertilizers alone. ”

“ The farm-made manure is likely to be much richer in potash and lime, and the city manure is richer in phosphates and nitrogen. Yet in the reports of the farmer, these two essentially different fertilizers are designated as stable manure simply.
21“Every one understands that a fertilizer acts upon the plant to supply it with food, and to favour its growth; everybody is also convinced that some fertilizers act upon the soil, improving its texture and composition and increasing its fertility. It is an equally well ascertained fact that the soil acts upon fertilizers to modify their effect. ”

“ A given amount of plant-food is put upon the land, which is under a four-years' rotation. One half of it is applied every second year. The corn gets one half because it can use it to advantage. The oat crop that follows finds enough fertility because the soil is good. Next in the rotation is the wheat, and the wheat and timothy and clover plants can use fertilizer with profit. There is no change in its character because it is the soil that is getting the assistance, and not primarily just one crop in a rotation. ”

“ It will be thus understood, that though it does not directly supply food to the plant, it ministers indirectly in a most important manner to its well-being, and that to so great an extent that it must be considered an indispensable constituent of a fertile soil. But it is important to observe that it must not be present in too large a quantity, for an excess does away with all the good effects of a smaller supply, and produces soils notorious for their infertility. ”

“ Fertilization.—The ability of alfalfa to add fertility to the farm, and directly to the field producing it when all the crops are removed as hay, does not preclude the necessity of having the soil fertile when the seeding is made. The plants find competition with grass and other weeds keen under eastern skies where moisture favors plant-life. In their first season this is markedly true. There should be plenty of available plant-food for the young plants. Stable manure that is free from the seeds of pernicious weeds makes an excellent dressing. ”

“ But this is not the greatest advantage in the use of this fertilizer; the first application puts the land in such condition, that judicious after cultivation renders it continuously fertile by its own action of productiveness and reproductiveness of wheat, clover and wheat, by turning in the clover of one year for the wheat of the next, and by returning the straw back to the ground where it grew, spread open the surface to shade the plants of clover and manure its roots, which in turn manure the corn or wheat. ”

“ If you live in a section where your neighbors have gardens, you might club together to hire a teamster for a day to do the plowing and harrowing for you all, thus saving a large amount of labor.
After your garden has been well dug, it must be fertilized before any planting is done. In order to produce large and well-grown crops it is often necessary to fertilize before each planting. Very good prepared fertilizers can be bought at seed stores, but horse or cow manure is much better, as it lightens the soil in addition to supplying plant food. ”