The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1879-04-23
FARM AND PRESIDE.
Important to Farmers.

II j. coming TO be better understood
that success IN farming depends far
more upon how much one gets per acre
than upon the number of acres he cult
Yates. If a mans time, team, seed, i'm
DIenents. etc. are worth or cost $500
a wear 10 cultivate fifty acres, and the
crops produced, whatever they may be,
are equivalent 10 twelve bushels of
wheat per acre, worth on an average 81
per bushel, he has just 500 left for in
terest on the land taxes, etc. If the
crops equaI nnIeen DuoiioIs vf wheat Por
acre, he has $3.50 surplus for land etc.
Ifthey are equal To twenty bushels OF
wheat per acre, he has $500 surplus; if
twenty-five bushels peracre, he has $3.50.
The same rule holds good for one hun
bred acres, or any other area. The great
question, then, is how to increase the
Weld per acre, with only the same
cost for labor, teams, implements and
seed.
Omitting the question of drainage,
and Of green manures, and supposing
the land in proper dryness and filth,
there i no doubt that sufficient amount
of the right kind Of manure or fertilizers
will secure this 5 to 10 bushels per acre
increase.
Recent observations, careful expert
ments and extensive chemical investiga-
lions, show that our cultivated crops
need for their best growth the presence
of several substances. Three or four
are seldom Abundant in soils, or are
largely available in but few, and are
rapidly exhausted by the removal Of
crops Two Of these, for example, phos-
phoric acid and nitrogen, are indispen-
sable az plant food Potash is also! need
ed n food and to develop and prepare
other food. Lime acts ike potash in
feeding or preparing food for plants.
OF these four substances, nitrogen,
potash, lime and phosphoric acid, some
soils and crops want one, some want two
and some want three, if not all Of them.
Good barn yard manure invariably con-
tains all Of them So long as one can F!
get enough Of good barn yard manure, |
cheapIy enough and near enough to the I
fields, that Is all that is needed. With /
it, if the other conditions Of the soil, /
its drvness and filth or mechanical CON
dition, be right, we can raise our crops /
from an equivalent of II bushels Of
wheat to 20 or more bushels per acre.
But unless it be on farms mainly used |
in stock raising, there is far from enough |
good yard manure to secure the higher I
profits. And just here another question /
comes in. If soil lacks potash only, |
a small quantity of this in the form Of
potash salts or Of ashes, may he as useful |
rs thousands of pounds of yard manure
containing only the same amount ofpot- |
ash. In that case we could buy and apply |
the potash more cheaply than we could |
haul and apply the manure to field |
distant from the yard, allowing the ma
nure to cost nothing. If the soil lacks !
only phosphoric acid for certain crop,
bag Of superphoSphate or dissolved
bones will supply more Of it than several
tons of yard manure. If, then, we
can ascertain just what field lacks,
we may find it very profitable to buy
the special fertilizer the soil wants, and
use the yard manure on such fields as
need all it contains, or on those heavy
soils where its loosening effect will be
most useful, and where little hauling is
required. Agriculturist.