Rocky Mountain husbandman. [volume] (Diamond City, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1878-05-16

| gFedlents Is called for as the first condition
OF the restoration to fertility. This is th
'eaching OF the experience of 5000 years
quite independently OF ssthe reason wlly.'' a
developed by the progress OF science. Con
VeTseiy, when i'll one out of ten thousant
eases we find a soil which continues to bea
crops indefinitely without returns being
maze by Its cultivators, the first and reason
able surposition must be that through some
exceptional natural cause, the replacement O.
ingredients tohcs place Uitllom the Intervention
Of man.
LII all cases that have been fully invest
gated so far, such an outside natural source
OF supply has been found. That of the
bottom lands of the Nile is the flooding
from the rivers trayersing and washing
away the fertile upands of Abyssinia. Sim
liar cases, on Il smaller scale, are abundant
and, as regards California, the testimony OF
many in the flooded district would seem to
show that if the sediment of the Sacramento
were allowed to cover the valley every six
or eight years, we need seek no farther for
the lnexhaustible soil. 1t is true that here
we get Il neeo soil with every flood.
Then there are cases in which waters nat
urally hold, in solution. large amounts of
plant food, and therefore continually supply
the latter to the soils which they permeate.
This has, in fact, given rise to the broad
statement that irrigation will, by'itself aione
maintain fertility. 1t will do so in certain
eases, and some such seem to obtain in Cali
fornia. If your correspondent will lefer to-
my late report, he will find on page 80 a
case in point, in the water running from a
mine in FL Dorado county. But there are
more striking examples found among the
''alkali soils" OF the State, On pages As to
a of the document referred to will be found
analyses Of the alllali from some of these
soils occurring in the southern part OF the
State, in which potassium sails form a prom
inent ingredient. These soils, in all proba-
bflty, will never need potash manures, even
if they should be reclaimed by under-drain-
certainly will not if reclaimed
with gypsum only. Since then, soils have
come to hand whose alkali contains both of
the other chief manurial substances. viz:
phosphorc acid and nitrogen, the latter in
the shape of potash nitrate. AS it is likely
that these substances will always be sup
piled in sufficient quantities by the soil wat
er, shall not be surprised if the Utopian
''soil that never gives out" should be found
among the reclaimed alkali lands of Caifor-
MIA.
Whether or not the everlasting wheat soils
Of the Andes, mentioned by Boussingault, |
owe their perpetual fertility to similar causes
lions have been made. There is one other
possible cause that has been occasionally |
noted, in the case of soils formed out of ev-
cry decomposable volcanic rocks, whose
continued weathering makes up for all the
!fafts made upon the soil by cropping.
AS to the assertion that s'maize may like
wise be produced continually upon the same
soil without inconvenience" American farm
nave, unfortunately. very different story
% tell. Ask the ''prairie farmers" of Iii +
aos where are the so bushels per acre they
lsed to make when their land was fresh?
It is true that maize is not to be accounted a
iery exhaustive crop, when all but'the ears
5 returned to the soil, and that it can usual
y be grown without rotation better than
most crops. But apart from the Peruvian
experience (Which probably relates to GER
ain volcanic soils, more than that can hard
Y be said of it.
But there are some crops whose nature
happens to be such that what they with