Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1880-05-05
Professor Atwater on Fertilizers.

SIXTH ARTICLE.
Professor Atwater opens his sixth and
concluding article with plea for corn rails
ing in Vermont, at least on a scale sufficient
to relieve us from dependence upon the west
for our supply of that important article of
food for man aud beast. "With a cheap
and effective manure this could be done'
he says, and adds, " But our farms do not
furnish manure enough, and we have to look
outside" Looking at this question from the
point of view of a practical corn.grower, we
cannot agree that the chief difficulty in the
way of growing our own corn lies in the
lack of manure. We think 1t is capable
of demonstration that the manurial mate
rial now neglected and wasted on the farms
of Vermont would, if wisely utilized, be far
more than sufficient to grow the corn con-
sumed in the state. The value of the wasted
liquid excrement of our cattle is at least
portion which is applied to the crops actu-
ally grown. And every farmer knows that
very considerable part of the value of the
solid dung is lost on most farms by bad man
agemept and carelessneSs. That our other
resources for plant-food in our muck beds.
in the unused bones, ashes, and other waste
matter of the house and farm are alone
more than sufficient to double our present
corn crop, there can be no reason to doubt.
And when we consider what has been and
easily might be done to increase the fertility
of our soil by the more extensive growth
of clover and the use, in connection there
with, of that cheapest of all artificial fer
tilizers, plaster, we can plainly see that we
are not shut up to the purchase of manufac.
tured phosphates and heterogeneous material,
or of imported potash salts in order to grow
the corn we consume in Vermont. The
principal present obstacle in the way of
growing corn for home use is our Anticipated
method Of cultivating and handling the
crop. Until hand-work in planting and cul-
tivation is banished from New England corn
fields, all this preaching about increasing
our corn crop will return to the preachers
void. Fields cleared of obstacles to the use
of machines, and then machine.planting and
machine-tillage, is what we require, and
must have, before we shall see great IL
crease in our acreage of corn. The corn
planter, the smoothingharrow and the rid
ing-cultivator, once introduced into our corn
fields and reducing the work of growing the
crop to one or two days per acre, will have
wonderful effect in replacing our one acre
patches of corn with genuine corn field
of from ten to hundred acres. We have
actly suited to these methods now, and a
moderate amount of labor applied in the
direction of fitting fields to machine culture
would easily double the quantity. The young
men must take hold of this matter, for the
old ones never will. They will look at the
machines in the fair and talk about them,
either contemptuously or with faint ap-
proval of their ingenuity, but doubt and
deny their practical use "among the hills of
Vermont" 1t is the young men who must
put them into use and prove that, with their
aid, it is as easy to grow ten acres of corn
as it now is to grow one acre.
When this is done we shall have come to
the question of fertilizers, and shall have to
meet face to face the query whether it is
cheaper to buy phosphates aud nitrogen and
potash salts by the thousand car loads, or to
remodel our barns, save our waste, utilize
our muck, and find out by practical expert
ment what can be done with clover as an
enriching crop. No doubt we shall find a
large place, even then, for purchased fertili-
zers, and a still wider one for purchased
manure-making feeds like cotton-seed and
linseed meal and mill feed. We have got to
put brains into our business and to feed our
brains, too with both scientific and practical
knowledge. We have got learn, or have our
sons learn, enough about agricultural chem
istry to understand fully the teachings of
scientific instructors like Professor Atwater,
and TO enable us to reduce science to prac-
tice proftably-proftably! PRoFITABLY /
We shall find scientific studies, like all use.
full studies, beneficial in broadening our in
tellects but, if they do not also broaden our
acreage of proftably-grown crops, they will
not have half done their work.
Professor Atwater takes up the sugges-
tons and plans regarding corn fertilizers
that have been furnished by several inves-
tigators Of the subject, and reviews them
Lawes of Rothamstead, England who has
done more to unite science with practice on
the farm than any other ten men, thinks the
bestpossible artificial manure for cereal crops
including corn, to be mixture of superphos
phate with nitrate of soda. But they dc
not grow corn in England, and so far as tina
crop is concerned Mr.. Lawes' judgment OF
this point is only theoretical. Corn differ
materially from other cereals in its vigor O
growth and its ability to utilize fully tn,
natural resources of the soil. Mr.. Lawes
exclusion of potash from his cereal fertilize
applies only to strong clay lands in which
undertaking and thorough tillage, such a
they give the land in England but not ye
in America, will develop the potash of tn
soil rapidly as the crops need it. Upon tn
natural corn lands of New England, corr
cannot be proftably grown without the us
90 "A mamma onntainin0 aua;lhlo ,.o4oah Z,