The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1877-01-13
AN ESSAY
READ BEFORE THE CECIL FARMERS CLUB,
AT THE HOUSE OF LLOYD BALDERsToN,
18TH MO-, 18th, 1876.

manures, it were well to begin by simpli-
flying the list of what pass under that name.
There are many compounds usually called
phosphates Of some sort, the composition of
which is not known to the public. These,
whatever their excellence for particular
crops, need not be here noticed as Compel
ing manures. A fertilizer now in the mar
ket may this year have been distinguished
for its powerful effect, but we know not it's
composition, and the same brand may next
year be applied to an article of different
composition and of little worth.
Taking, then list of recognized stand
ard manures, lime, sulphate of lime, bone,
South Carolina rock, guano, ashes, kainit,
poudrette and stable manure, it were, per-
haps, idle to set up the claims Of any one of
them at the expense of the others. There
is a wide area of country in which the i'm
portance of lime has long been proved
where, indeed, it seemed at the time to be
Indispensable, and where, by it's use COM
bined with economy in the manurial re.
sources at home, land that had been poor
has become highly productive. But after
repeated applications amounting to, per-
haps, $50 bushels per acre, running through
a course of twenty years, it has been found
that additional lining was of little use. 1t
may even have appeared positive detri-
ment, as also has been the case on lands
SO composed that more lime was not called
for. In my younger years a school acquaint-
ance, from western New York, instructed
by his father, asked me for information
about applying lime to our soil. l told him
the practice in Montgomery county, Pa,
with its beneficial effects. Some two years
after was at his fathers farm near Lock
Port. He, the father, showed me his wheat
fields. They had all been good but one,
and that was the one that suffered the ex-
pertinent of being treated with lime.
Sulphate of lime, plaster of Paris is an
article that, at small cost, has done the
farming interest as much benefit as perhaps
any other purchased fertilizer. 1. has been
the means of renovating many worn out
fields; and where there has been care and
judgment in keeping the soil covered with
clover, or replenished from the barn yard,
lands have been thus kept for long time
in highly productive state. But this min
eral, though it has worked such magical
results, is of very uncertain benefit in gen.
eral use. 1t would seem rather to have
been employed to bring into activity ele-
ments already in the soil than to act as an
additional source of fertilizer. 1t may have
been means of stimulating the wasting
energies of a field, and thus forcing crops
that would have failed without it-leavng
the soil, after a course of such treatment,
more poor than it could otherwise have
been made. Science and learning may pre-
sumo to explain the modus operdndi of the
effect of "plaster ito tell the conditions
under which it will be beneficial and those
where it will not. But despair of such
knowledge. Have known it to double or
quadrupe crop of clover the season it
was applied. | have known the effect de-
layed for seven years, and then be mani
Tested by marked luxuriance in single
crop, and have seen applications with no
known result. Conclude it much better to
use manures of reliable action, and not need
plaster though by using it we might wiring
from the soil an extraordinary crop.
Next in our list comes bone. There may
be large areas in our country where the soil
is SO we'll replenished with phosphate of
lime that it would not be judicious to ex-
pend money for ground bone. doubt not
that remark made. by Horace Greeley will
be true in a general application, "where
you find the cattle habitually chewing bones,
you may be sure the soil wants bone as a
manure My experience in early life in
Montgomery county, Pa, and subsequently
here in Cecil, was that every day, if scat
tered bones were accessible, we might see
one or more of the cows chewing bone by
the hour. But now, since our fields have
all been supplied with bone manure, we
never see cow chewing bones. We might
thus infer that the application of this arti-
Gle has supplied to our grass an important
element in the animal economy. And we
have other proof of this in the fact that
bone grown grass will make perhaps twenty
per cent more butter than grass grown by
any or all other known manures; and if
our feeders had tried the experiment, they
would, no doubt, have found it equally su-
perior in fattening cattle. 1t were need
less to make statements before this club to
show the effect of bone. 1t is within the
experience of all of us that its application
has caused soils of the poorer sort to yield
heavy crops of corn, wheat and hay, but
the fact above stating the superior quality
Of that hay may not have been noticed by
all of US. Cecil county hay sells at a pre-
MUM in Baltimore market, and this may
be owing to the circumstance that bone is
so generally used in its production. Hence
in reckoning the comparative value of ma
nures l must give bone high place. l
had rather dispense with all others pur-
chased from abroad than do without this.
Yet l apprehend there is limit in the ex.
tent of its use beyond which it were not
profitable to pass at present, and that limit
has been nearly reached by many farmers
in this county.
South Carolina rock, the next in our list,
purports to be phosphate of lime. Hence
it may supply the same element afforded by
ground bone. When rendered soluble by
acid it is ready for immediate action, and
may continue to benefit few succeeding
crops. | am not aware that it's durability
is yet well tested. | would think that, as
between the rock and ground bone, the
question would chiefly be one of cheapness
or facility of procurement. The rock would
probably best suit the tenant farmers, or
one who needed immediate effect, as on
beets or wheat But when we aim at last
ing fertility, and have time to plan year
beforehand, the bone is highly satisfactory.
Peruvian guano is an article of long stand
ing availability. When the Spaniards took
possession of Peru, they found the aborigi-
mes using it as a manure, and thus raising
heavy crops. Profiting by this lesson from