The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1879-04-11
IMPORTANT TO F4RMERs.


l. is coming to be better understood 7
that success in farming depends far
more upon how much one ge.s per
acre than upon the number OF acres
he cuItivates. If q mans time, teams,
seed, implements, etc, are worth or
cost $500 a year to cultivate fifty acres,
and tue crops produced, whatever they
NAV be, are equivalent to twelve push
els of wheat per acre, worth on an
average 81 per bushel, he has just slOO
left tor interest of the land, taxes, etc.
If the crops equal fifteen bushels OF
wheat per acre, he has $3.50 surplus for
land. etc. If they are equal TO twenty
bushels Of wheat per acre, he has $500
surplus if twenty-five bushels per
acre, he has $3.50. The same rule
holds good for one hundred acres, or
any other area. The great question
then is how to increase the yield per
acre, with only the same cost for Ia
Dor, teams, implements and seed.
Omitting the question of drainage,
and of green manures, and suppOsing
the land in proper dryness and tilth
there is no doubt that a sufficient
amount of the right kind of manure
or fertilizers will secure this : to 10
bushels per acre increase,
Recent observations. careful expert
ments and extensive chemical investi
cations, show that our cultivated
crops need for their best groth the pres
ence of several substances. Three or
four are seldom abundant in soils, o.
are largely available in but few, and
are rapidly exhausted by the removal
of crops. Two of these, for example,
phosphoric acid and nitrogen, are in
.disPensable as plant food. Potash is
also needed as food, and to develop
and prepare other food. Lime acts
like 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 lot all of
them Good barn yard manure invar-
iably contains all of them. So long
as one can get enough of good barn
yard manure, cheaply enough and
near enough to the fields, that is all
that is needed. With it, if the other
conditions of soil, its dIyness and tilLh
OF mechanical condition, be right, we
can raise our crops from an equivalent
of II bushels of wheat to 30 or 25 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 profits. And just here
another question comes in. If a soil
lacks potash only, small quantity Of
this in the form of potash salts or o.
ashes, may be useful as thousands o
pounds of yard manure containing on
" the same amount of potash. Ii
that case we could buy and apply the
potash more cheaply than we coulc
haul and apply the manure to a tielC
distant from the yard. allowing tht
manure to cost nothing If the sol
lacks only phosphoric acid for Ger
tain crop, bag of superphOsphate o
dissolved bones will supply more of i
than several tons Of yard manure. |
then we can ascertain just what
field lacks, we may find it very prof
table 20 buy the special fertilizer tht
soil wants, and use the yard manure
on such fields as need all it contains
or on those heavy soils where its lOOs
ening effect will be the most usefu
and where little hauling is required
american 1gricItltlU-tst.