The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1879-01-15
1882
Soil Fertilization.

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Soil Fertilization.
This, though embracing plant fer
tilization, and having for its ultimate
object the supply OF food for plants
differs from it in several material
tespectA
One is special, direc. and partial
and designed to affect particular
crop, while the other is general, indi-
rect and designed to permanently
improve the soil, and supply nourish-
ment to more than one generation OF
plants. One supplies just those ele-
ments of plant-food in ratio to each
other, and in aggregate quantity sufi-
cient to nourish particular plants !;
the other supplies all the elements OF
plant-food, to the soil as a reservoir
from which any plants may select the
particular elements necessary tor its
nutrition.
One is temporary and looks to i'm
mediate returns-the other is more
permanent, improving the capital in
vested in land, and increasing the re-
turns through a series of years.
TIE MEANS Used.
To secure the permanent improve
ment of a soil, it must net only be
abundantly supplied with the various
elements OF plant.food in forms either
available or readily rendered so, but
the mechanical condition must be
such as to afford the free expansion
of the roots of plants, and to freely
absorb, and retentiyely hold, moisture
and ammonia.
1t is, therefore, necessary to sup
ply three classes of substances to the
soil to compass these ends, viz ; actual
plant food, chemical agents, and ple-
chanical agents.
Actual plant-tood, or fertilizers
proper, embrace all the mineral ele-
ments of plant-food, and one volatile
nitrogen.
Paosphoric acid and potash are the
only mineral ingredients which are
so far exhausted as. to require artifi
cial application to most soils, though
soda, lime. magnesia, and, for some
plants, chlorine in small quantities
are sometimes added. Lime, which
acts in the triple capacity of fertilizer,
chemical agent, and mechanical agent.
is present in most soils in sufficient
quantity to meet all demands for it
in the first capacity.
Phosphate rock and animal bones
furnish the chief commercial source
of phosphoric acid.
Potash, next IN Importance to
phosphoric acid, is exported from
Germany in the two forms of sulphate
of potash and chloride of potassium.
From hard wood ashes it is OBJ
tanned as carbonate. 1t is furnished
also to soils, by the decomposition of
igneous rocks containing felspar. In
some instances the debris of these
rocks, in some localities, deposited in
vast beds in connection with mari, |
known as green sand mari. There
is deposit of this mari in Houston,
and other countries both east and
west OF it, which analyses from two
to three per cent. of potash.
Farm yard manure, which is q COM
plete manure in the sense of contain |
ing ali of the elements Of plantfood, |
has in all time been used in soil fertil-
ization and answers an admirable |
purpose when applied broadcast in
large quantities; but the supply is
too limited in a planting region, to
accomplish the purpose on a large |
scale.
The chief reliance for soil improve
ment on n large scale must ever be
the growth of leguminons plants, to
be returned to the soil, in connection
with the application Of the principal
mineral elements in conjunction with
a judicious rotation of crops, which
require the mineral elements in diff
ferent proportions.
The plants used in this country for
this purpose are clover, the field pea
or bean, and common vctch
CHEMICAL AGENTS.
Lime is the principal chemical
agent which is artiticialy applied to
soils.
The chemical action iii the soil is
varied and important. lis first, and
most important, is in neutralizing
acids in the soil, by forming chemical