Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1880-03-29
agricultural department.
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT AND
STATE AGRICULTURAL
COLLEGE.

ded by the University some lessons on the value and
use OF commercial fertilizers in Vermont 1t is hoped
tions which they are asking. Questions on which
further information desired may be addressed me,
and answer will be made either in future articles or
NJ. H. BucKHAM President.
FIELD EXPERIMENTS WITH FERTILIZERS.
During the past two years the State
Agricultural college, in cooperation with
large number of prominent farmers in
the State, has been endeavoring to get
some definite information as to the best
means for restoring the fertility of our
WORKOUT lands.
The chief reliance of the farmer for
bringing up his land and maintaining and
increasing its fertility must be proper
tillage and economical outstanding and
use of the manures of the farm. But
most farms do not and many, for some
time to come, at least, can not, supply
enough of these. In consequence, our
farmers are using every year hundreds
of thousands of dollars worth of arti6-
cial fertilizers, phosphates, bone. guano,
potash salts and the like. and with vary
ing, though, on the whole, favorable re-
suits. 1t is certain that these, rightly
employed, are very profitable and often
indispensable aids to successful farming
HOW CAN VERMONT FARMERS USE CONNER
CIAL FERTILIZERS PRoFITABLY?
To get some light upon this question,
and at the same time to learn more of
how some of our crops may best be
grown, the college has instituted expert
ments with fertilizers in all parts of the
State, furnishing materials and directions
to intelligent and public-spirited gentle
men who have been making the trials
upon their farms. A full account of
these and the conclusions to which they
lead will appear in the next biennial re-
port of the college. Meanwhile it is
proposed to give herewith some of the
main results and ways in which Vermont
farmers may use them this coming sea-
son. Before describing the experiments,
however, let us briefly recapulate some
of the
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF PLANT
| GROWTH AND FERTILIZATION.
l. Plants, like animals, require food
for life and growth. A part of the food
of plants is supplied from the atmos-
phere. the remainder is derived from the
soil. No ordinary cultivated plant can
thrive without sufficient supply of each
of number of substances needed for its
food. With an abundance of all these,
in forms in which the plant can use them,
and with other circumstances favorable,
the crop will flourish, But if the availa-
BILE supply of any one of them be too
small, light yield is inevitable. For in
stance, potash is an essential ingredient
of the food of plants. If all the other
conditions for good growth of corn,
potatoes, or other plants are fulfilled in
the soil, except that potash is deficient
the crop will inevitably fail. But if the
potash be supplied, the yield will be
abundant.
, 2. The most important soil-ingredient'
of plant food, the ones that the atmos
phere can not supply and the soil must
so that the plant can absorb them through
its roots, are potash. lime, magnesia
iron, phOsphOric acid, swbphuric acid
: chlorine, and some compound of nitrogen
, Plants also take silica, soda and some
/ other materials from the soil, but thes,
| are needed only in minute quantities o.
not at all.
3. In removing crops from the soil w
: take away plant food. This is the chic
i cause of soil exhaustion. Lack of fer
tility is commonly due, in large part o
entirely, to lack of plant food.
J 4. Soils vary greatly in their capabil
} tiles of supplying food to crops. Differ
, ent ingredients are deficient in differen
) soils. The chief lack of one may b
, potash. of another phosphoric acid, o
e another several ingredients, and so on.
5. Soils fail to furnish enough food t.
crops, not so much because they hav
! not abundant stores as because the ma
: terials are not in available forms. A sol
7 may have thousands of pounds of phos
0 phoric acid within reach of the plant. bu
/ locked up in fragments of rock so tina
/ the roots can not absorb it and thus tn
: crop will fail for lack of phosphoric acid
}, 6. The infertility of many soils is du
s more to their mechanical condition, thei
= texture, and relations to heat and moist
:, ure, than to lack of plant food. Sue
t soils want amendment first and manure
! afterward. Some soils will give good re
: turns for manuring; others, without irr
e CATION, or amendment by drainig. til
e age, use of lime, mari, or muck, or othel
! wise, will not.
FERTILIZERS AND PLANT FOOD.
z. The chief use of fertilizers is |
supply plant food which crops need an
y soils fail to furnish.
e 8. But the indirect action of fertilizer
Z in Improving the mechanical condition