Rocky Mountain husbandman. [volume] (Diamond City, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1875-12-16
AERATION OF THE SOIL.


ing around a circle, we seem to have come
back to the old idea of Jethro Tull but with
much clearer and more definite knowledge
than this old writer possessed. He believed
and taught that by sufficient culture the soil
could be made to bear crops continually
without manure; that ''tillage is manure"
in fact. After much working in the dark,
much experimenting, much theorizing, and
much scientific investigation, we find that
we can produce crops indefinitely by means
OF mineral manures alone, and without so
much as returning one straw or one ounce
of vegetable matter to the soil. Thousands
Of tons of chemical fertilizers are now used
yearly in which there is nothing but mineral
matter, and profitable crops are raised year
after year by the aid of superphosphate of
lime, nitrate Of soda, and guano alone. Then
1 we have found-to explain the seeming
anomaly-that plants can only appropriate
mineral food that vegetable or animal ma
nures are useless until they have been re-
duced by decomposition to their ultimate
mineral elsments. And herein lies lesson
that is of present and most useful applica-
|
| ton.
Decomposition of organic matter can only
go on in the presence and by the direct
agency of the oxygen of the atmosphere.
Until orgalic matter is decomposed it is not
fertilizer If we apply never so much raw
manure oryegetable matter to the soil and
bury it outof reach of the air, we may sow
in vain, forIwe shall fail to reap the expected
crop. 1t is by cultivation of the soil only
that we can admit the air, which is neces-
sary to redpce the manure we apply to such
| a state of final decomposition as shall fit it
for the growth and subsistence of plants.
| These facts explain much that we have
discovered by simply running our heads
against it. The benefit of applying manure
and keeping it near the surface is one of the
things we have learned. Others are that the
more mellow and open we keep the soil, the
more we aerate it and permit it to breathe,
the more productive it is made; that the
more we leave the soil exposed to the Win
ter's frost, the more mellow and open and
fertile it becomes; that the more we expose
manure to the atmosphere by repeated turn
1ngs, the more available it becomes for plant
focd; thatwhen we plow under clover and
other green crops in the fall, and leave them
to remain in a frozen condition during the
winter, they are not half so effective as when
we plow them under in the spring, when
the air, helped by the SUMS warmth, quickly
reduces them to decomposition; that when
we drain the soil and free 1t from stagnant
water and permit the air to enter in, we
double the capability Of the soil to produce
crops All these and much more we have
learned by experience, and when the chem
ist discovers in his laboratory that plants
feed only on mineral food, we have at once
the solution of the problem we have blunder-
ed into ourselves. 1t is comfortable to know
that we have been on the right track, and
that we have not to change our plans for
something. new.
We have now a good opportunity to apply
this knowledge to practice. The stubbles
which now lie untouched, beaten and hard
upon the surface, should be plowed at once,
and exposed to the sun and air as much as
possible before the winter sets in. Whatever
vegetable matter in the shape of muck
ditch mud, road scrapings, weeds, or stable
manure we can gather, should be heaped
and composted together, that it may not
freeze up in the winter, and that it may be |
rotted and fit for use in the spring. Dress
ings of mineral manures that maybe intend
ed for fall sown crops should not be applied
until spring, as, needing no time for decom-