Pomeroy weekly telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy, Meigs County, Ohio) 1860-1866, 1860-12-28
From the Ohio cul,ivator,

From the Ohio cul,ivator.
ELEMENTS OF FERTILITY IN SOILS.
In late number of a leading paper,
it is maintained that by taking off the
corn and plowing under the stalks, the
fertility of soil may be increased in
definitely, and such system is strongly
recommended. 1t truly appears plausi-
BILE, let US examine more closely
Nature is the farmers guide, and he
is successful so far as he follows her
teachings. She has with greatest pains
taking produced perfect equilibrium
between the vegetab BILE and animal worlds.
Each absorbs the etfete poisons genera
ted by the other Everybody knows
how plants absorb the deleterious car
bonic acid, and give back oxygen to the
atmosphere, for the support of animals,
but all do not perceive the beautiful ar
rangement by which the excrements of
animals become the life of plants
These contain the essential elements for
the vigorous growth of vegetation,
which cannot be obtained, anywhere else.
The farmer, maintaining that he can en-
rich his land, ad in6nitum, by plowing
under stalks or straw, says he does sup
ply these elements, and consequently
knows better than nature how to econo-
mize the elements of fertility. Let us
see. Is the soil enriched?
In vegetable matter, in what are
termed the organic elements, and if a
stiff clay, beneficial results from in
creased porosity, may be expected; on a
deep prairie, or bottom soil, for a great
number of years the results may not de-
eide for either method, but even then
the soil cannot be cheated always: thin
soil will increase for few crops in fer
tilify, and rapidly decrease. Why?-
Because that which the grain extracts
is not returned by the stalks. Phospho-
rus exists in homeopathic proportions
in the richest soils; this the grain must
have, and though it absorbs but small
quantity, the product of years will ulti-
mately exhaust the soil which furnishes
it, and no amount Of stalks "plowed un.
dor" can restore it. To say that it will,
is like arguing that taking ten pounds
of -four from barrel and putting back
nine, will never exhaust its contents
One idea-ism is a pest on the farm as
well as everywhere else. The farm is a
miniature of natures workshop. Plants
and animals are laboratories in which
the farmer works the raw material into
valuable form, and the more value he
can give it, at the least expense to the
farm, the more profit he realizes.
Stock of all kinds give back to veg
citation more than they receive, for their
excrements contain products manufac-
tured in the animal, which are the most
stimulating fertilizers; they give back
nearly all the mineral matter they re-
ceive, except small quantity of phos-
phate and carbonate of lime, which
must be supplied with bone dust
Hence the true economist will SO adjust
his stock, that all his fodder will be
consumed-coarse litter will absorb all
the excrements of the yard, and his
fields be doubly enriched. The care
less farmer complains of the few loads
his yard affords-he better complain of
their quality after being washed by a
year Of rains, and burned by evapora-
ting suns. I heard a farmer say he
made ten loads of manure while fatten-
ing one hog! the manure was Of more
value than the hogl How much grain
and hay would that ten loads produce?
How much more stock that farmer
might keep2 Thus is nature copied; a
perpetual circulation preserved; profit
results on both sides, while the farm
under a proper treatment is constantly
growing more productive.
Walaut Grore. HUDSON TUTTLE.