Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1877-03-28
Fertilizers.

every necessary element oil plant 1000
which is derived from the soil must be pres
ent in the soil before that plant can be made
to grow and thrive in it. And it must be
present there in a condition which permits
it to be dissolved in the water of the soil,
for no plant can take its food in the solid state
This elementary fact ought to be known so
well by every farmer that he never forgets
it. Otherwise he will be constantly making
mistakes in the use of fertilizers, and form
ing incorrect opinions in regard to them.
No more common question is asked of
agricultural editors than such as this
(Which do you regard as the best fertilizer,
ashes or phosphate ?" This question, or
similar one, in regard to plaster, salt, guano
ETC., ETC., is asked continually. Yet it will
never be asked by any one who is fully int
pressed with the truth mentioned above
that all the necessary elements of plant food
must be furnished before plants will grow.
Inreply to this, men will say, "But we have
tried plaster and failed, and then tried salt
and succeeded, on the same land. How do
you explain this ?" 1t is easily explained
by the fact that there is hardly any tillable
soil that does not contain some elements of
plant food in abundance. In the case men,
toned it would be plain that salt either fur
nished, or aided to furnish, something which
was needed to complete the fertility of that
soil, while plaster did not.
1t would be perfectly rational and proper
question to ask whether horse or COW ma
nure, sheep or hog manure, hen or privy
manure, were best for certain crop, because
all these animal manures contain all the nee.
essary elements of plant food having been
derived, either directly or indirectly from
the consumption of the plants themselves.
They are perfect manures, yet each has it,
peculiar adaptation to particular crops, and
there is consequently often choice between
them.
But among the imperfect, or special fer
tilizers, which supply only one or two food
elements, the same choice cannot be exer
cised. The application of any of them mus
be determined by the special requirement
of particular soil, or particular crop. !
soil lacks potash the call of that soil is 70
ashes, which gives potash directly, or 10.
plaster, which will often set the insolubl
potash which may be there free in solubl
state. If the plant be one that requires but
little potash, plaster, except in very dr..
season, would in many soils help it to all thu
potash it wanted. But if there were NJ
potash in the soil soluble or insoluble, plas-
ter would have no effect, because it has no
potash in its own composition, and simply
acts to dissolve portion of whatever potash
may be in the soil. In such case ashes,
or some other fertilizer containing potash,
would be required. And also, where the
crop is one that takes much potash (pota-
toes, for instance), ashes would be BEST be
cause it would supply the potash more
promptly and more abundantly.
Salt, like plaster, acts as an indirect fertilizer
that is, they both have an effect upon the
soil to make some of the plant-food it con.
tains soluble, so that the roots can absorb it
in the water that they take up. Besides its
action as an indirect fertilizer, plaster may
also be direct fertilizer in some soils, since
it is composed of lime and sulphuric acid,
both necessary items of plant food, though
they are generally present in sufficient guam.
tity in all good soils. But if they should
happen to be lacking, then plaster would be
a direct fertilizer to that soil. Salt is com
posed, like plaster, of an acid and an alkal
--muriatic otherwise called hydro-chloric
or chlorhydric) acid, and soda. But a.
neither OF these substances are regarded a.
necessary food for any land plants salt prob
ably acts only as an indirect fertilizer. Yet
however it acts, it sometimes exercises
powerful influence upon crop, and there il
reason to believe that, away from the sea
coast, it is a very valuable substance to ap
ply to the soil. A writer in the Counh,
Gentleman gives his experience with salt a
fertilizer and incidentally he shows how
an evidently intelligent farmer can be puz
zled and misled by the lack of knowing tn
facts in regard to special fertilizers, and tn
impossibility of making one do in place o
another of salt he says;
"Ipulverized 1t on my barn floor, and nike
with the salt as much sifted hardwood ashes as
had salt May 10th, drilled in my barley, an
sowed about two hundred and fifty pounds of tn
above mixture per acre and the result was, ha
good piece of barley, with very plump berr
and bright straw The farm had Just purchase
that spring. proved to have been run considerably
and the neighbors and passers-by would often as
what had been doing to my ground that mad
the barley look so rank"
Now here is case where two special fel
tilizers are mixed together, yet all the cred
is given to the salt How could any one
sure whether it was the salt or the ashe
or both together, which helped that barley
The writer goes on to say
g was 70 well pleased with this mixture OH m
barley ground that | resolved To try it on wint,
wheat part Of the field MANFRED with barr
yard manure; on another portion / drilled
twenty dollars worth of phosphate of lime tw
hundred pounds per acre at fifty dollars per tol
and on the remainder of the field drilled in tw
hundred and fifty pounds of salt and ashes D,
acre, with the following result: On the part ,
the field that was MANFRED the straw was vel
large with heads that bent over owing to the
weight and where the phosphate was used Ii
wheat was very nice and plump but the stra
not as large as where had used barn-yard mi
nure On the part Of the field where used sa
and ashes, the wheat was very thin on the groun
with heads erect and berry shrunk. The star
Of clover was good, except on the last name
piece, and think this will be my last attempt
use salt and ashes on winter wheat"
This way of experimenting reminds OF
of the quack doctor, who gave salt to sic
shoemaker and he got well afterwards
gave the same medicine to a blacksmit
who died. He recorded the cases with Il
comment Salt good for shoemaker
death TO blacksmiths" Continuing, Il
Country Gentiemans correspondent says