The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1875-04-15
On Fertilizers.

On Fertilizers.
A changed system of labor in the former
slave-holding States has necessitated, or vii
necessitate, change in the mode of farming
The old plantation system can never revive
and ultimately we will see the day of smaller
farms This, not as desirable in itself, nor as
more profitable, but from the demands of the
case. Until this change, however, which will
occur slowly and gradually, does take place
the main reliance of our Southern agricultu.
rists is upon fertilizers, and improved imple'
merts and machinery especially adapted to the
various cultures in practice among them. In
addition to the numerous labor-saving machines
of the North, some of which are entirely inap-
plicable to our needs, and most of which re-
quire more intelligence than that of the negro
feld-hand to manage them, we want special
implements suited to our special needs, and
this want is becoming so pressing that 1t can
not be long before the ingenuity OF our me-
chanical talent will supplyit. Even before this
we need rational system Of manuring, found
ed on principles of economy and reason, and
this system, in our view, to reach its highest
efficiency and value, must comprise the use OF
domestic manures and composts, as we'll as the
sort to green manuring, all combined. Great
as is the present demand for and use of COM
mercial manures, we consider that, in reality,
we are lust entering an epoch in our agricultu-
raj history when their consumption will be
wellnigh universal. Their intelligent applica-
tion in this country as in England, where in
SOME counties man would almost as soon un-
dertake to farm without his plow as without
his annual supply of super-phosphate, will be
demanded by the conditions of our farm prac-
tice We hope never again to see the teverlsh
excitement which once prevailed, and the illu-
sions which were formed as to the effects OF far
fetched guanoes, but it is our expectation that
we will reach point where the steady but dis
eliminating demand for reliable fertilizers will
exceed anything that has yet been witnessed in
this country. 1t is, however, far from our
thoughts that this demand will lessen in any
degree the attention paid to homemade ma
uures and composts. 1t would be derogatory
to the intelligence of the readers of the Amers-
can Farmer to even utter caution OH this
point. We have so often repeated our exhor-
tation to utilize the manurial products of the
farm-by mixing and composing the manures
of the stables and barn-yard, the muck and
marsh mud so often accessible, the guano-like
dung of the poultry house, the scrapings of the
pig-pens, the waste from the house, the night
soil from the vaults, the sods and trimmings
from the yards and roadsides-that none of our
readers will think of our suggesting the neglect
of home resources can be supplied by manu-
featured fertilizers. Our pages, too, have SO
often presented urgent appeals for the use OF
clover, buckwheat and the pea, as ameliorators
of the land, that we cannot be suspected OF
overlooking their Importance and worth. If
any one, likewise, is fortunate enough to be
situated so as to enrich his land by the feeding
of CATTLE then he will have little need to resort
either to turning under green crops or to ap-
plying mineral manures; but such cases are
comparatively few, though where the huge de-
posts of rich manure from stall-fed cattle are
found there, indeed, abundance and fertility
ought to prevail.
Our agricultural faith, however, looks for
ward to the day when all the means within
reach at home will be used to their fullest ef-
feet, and supplemented by external helps found
in the manures Of commerce.
These latter, we believe, are steadily appre-
eating in value, and are now prepared by the
aid of scientific skill of character which a
few years ago was entirely unknown in their
manufacture. Where, formerly, the manipula-
ton was crude and empirical, now the combi.
nation is the result of the keenest chemical
inquiry aud examination.
This very tendency to improvement in meth
DDS and to selections of the most promising
materials in the making of manures, is one OF
the surest safeguards the consumer has in their
use the competition in this now immense and
overwhelming branch of our commerce stimu-
lating manufacturers to increased watchfulness
in maintaining the character of their respec-
tive brands.
Nothing, perhaps, in agricultural science is
now more clearly settled than that, for supply
ing the needs of all soils, which by long culture
have become worn out by improvident crop
ping, two substances are absolutely needed, to
be supplied artifcially to restore such waste,
namely, nitrogen and phosphoric acid, Though
some deny as to the first,) and that on many,
especially those of light, sandy character, pot
ash is also desirable application. Of all the
other elements entering the composition OF
cultivated plants it is very rarely that any one
is not present in soils under tillage sufficient
for the needs of the crops.
Now, as the three elements named are pre-
cisely the ones which are supplied, or should
be, in every brand of commercial fertilizer,
some might doubt the economy of consuming
time and labor in gathering and composing
the materials named above as abounding on
the farm This might be true, too, but for this
additional fact, which we have stated more
than once before in these pages, but which is
one ofsuch practical consequence that its reepe-
tition again and again cannot be untimely-
which is that the effect of these mineral ma
nures is very much increased by is in direct
proportion, indeed, to the presence of the or
ganic materials naturally contained in the soil,
Of Or placed there arti6cially, either by turning
under green crops or by the addition of dones-
tic manures and composts More than this, it
is demonstrated almost to certainty, that the
more hunus existing in the soil, from the de-
composition of vegetable matters, the less the
need of adding nitrogen artifcially. As this
is the scarcest and consequently the most ex-
pensive ingredient entering into the constitu.
tion of bought manures, it is readily perceived
what saving is made by avoiding the necessi-
ty for its purchase.
We would say, then, that artificial manures,
from the condition of our agriculture, are des-
tined to greatly wdened use that this use, to
be profitable, must be only in combination with
that of all the materials to be accumulated and
mixed on and about the farm that where few