The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1880-11-17
FARM, GARDEN AND HOUSEHOLD.
OF Soil.

FARM, GARDETT AND HOUSEHOLD.
Exhaustion OF soiI.
The following, from the pen of Doctor
j. r. Lawes to the London Agricul nral
Gazet!e, is worth the attention of all
farmers: 1t is nov exactly forty years
since we began to exhaust a portion OF
n of my fields by continuous unma-
nured wheat crops. It may, therefore,
be interesting to show the evidence we
are in q position to bring forward upon
the subject of exhaustion, as regards the
soil at Rothamsted. 1t would appear
probable that the annual decline due to
exhaustion may amount from me-
quarter to one-third ola bushel of wheat
per eacre per annum. If we take the
smaller quantity and add to it the ordin-
airy proportion of straw, the result
would be equivalent to about forty
pounds Of produce; and, as there is little
doubt that the bulk of the organic mat
ter of the crop is obtained from the at.
mosphere, the amount OF matter annually
taken from the soil by these forty pounds
Of produce (including the nitrogen it
c~ontained) would be between two
pounds and three pounds. The evidence
derived from other experiments in the
same field proves that the decline in
produce is due to IN absence of nitrogen,
as also that minerals are in excess; but
the actual amount of nitrogen that these
forty pounds of produce would have
contained would be less than one-half
pound in weight! 1t will. 7 am afraid,
appear to your agricultural readers
something like an absurdity to suppose
that one-half pound, more or l,ss, of
any substance upon an acre of ground
could Lave an appreciable influence
upon q crop. may observe, however,
that this annual decline of forty pounds
of produce, small as it appears to be
amounts in forty years to ten bushes per
acre. Analyses of the soil, made as
different times, show that the nitrogen
is declining, and, as the free use of min.
erals in an adjoining experiment doet
not prevent the decline of the crop, we
can come to no other conclusion THAI
that the gradual decline in the produce
is due to the diminishing amount of
nitrogen in the soil. As far as the wheat
crop is concerned, it would appear that
the total amount of produce to be CD.
tanned from any soil must depend very
much upon the stores ofnitrogen already
in the land. 1t is true that The soil OBJ
tains a certain amount ofammonia from
the rainfall, and it probably condenses
more or less from the atmosphere; but
on the other hand, drainage carries
away every year more or less nitrogen,
in the form Of nitric acid, and it is evil
dent the atmospheric supply, whatever
it may amount to, does not suffice to
prevent q decline of the crop. 1t is,
therefore, also evident that the source
from which the forty crops obtained
their supply must have been the stores
of nitrogen already existing in the soil
when the experiment commenced.
Further, it seems most probable that
the yield of future crops will depend
upon the amount of nitrogen liberated
each year from the soil.
Gas-Tar VS.. Poultry Lice.
A short time ago my poultry-house
was swarming with lice; it could not be
entered without having the clothing
gray with insects wherever one touched
the roosts. If a hen brushed my hand
with her wing, dozens of lice could be
seen running over it. Indeed so des-
perate did affairs become that even OF
look at the poultry-house produced q
sensation of crawling things. Swab-
bling the roosts and s~prinkling the nest.
with kerosene had 10 perceptible effects
Fumigating with gas-tar and sulphur
met with no better success. The
youngest broods Of chickens grew weak,
moped around for a time, and finally
died. Some Of the hens also gave evil
dent signs of weakness, and their combs
turned e sickly color. At this stage of
affairs, I applied for a remedy to q
friend noted in poultry-raising as we'll rs
in other things professor j. B. Turner).
l learned that twenty years before he
had painted the inside of his poultry
house with gas.tar, and, although keep
ing constantly q large number Of fowls,
had not been troubled with lice since.
l got a few quarts of gas-tar from the
gas works. u the rate Of ten cents per
gallon. This tar is about the CON
sistency of new paint, and was readily
applied to the inside walls of my hen
housewife an old whisk broom-as
high. up as the roosts extended; the in
side of the nests and rOosts were also
thoroughly coated with the tar. This
was done on the morning of q clear day,
and by night the house was dry enough
for the chickens to roost in it. Before
the tar was applied the old nesting was
removed, and the floor, which is OF
dirt, was well scrapcd and sprinkled
-ith wood ochne u ha oh;olyoro lo~,,
to improve from that time forth, and in
less than two weeks not an insect pest
was to be found about the house or
chickens.-New York Tribune.
Regenerat'ng the Potato.
Captain Wayne Reid, the well-known
writer Of books of adventure and travel,
has been for the past three years experi-
meuting with seed potatoes from Mex
leo, the original habitat of the plant,
with q view to escaping the blight
which has been 80 disastrous to the
potato crop in England and Ireland.
He writes to the London Ltve Stock
Journal from his place in Hereford
shire, briefly detailing his experience,
from which it appears that of eleven
different varieties, planted at the same
time, in the same soil, and with the
same cultivation, the Mexican alone
showed not q spot of blight, NIL the
other kinds having been found TO be
diseased in q greater or less degree. In
addition to the immunity from disease,
he finds also that while the best Of his
English seed yielded a crop of but five
tons, or considerably less than 200
bushels, to the acre, the Mexican seed
produced over ten tons without special
care in cultivation, many single speci-
mems weighing a pound, or ever a
pound and a half. After being stored
through the winter in ordinary field
pits they come out perfectly sound, and
appear to improve in quality as the
spring advances. AS 4 table potato, or
for feeding to stock, he thinks they have
no equal in England, and he proposes
that the government shall take in hand
the importation of seed from Mexico or
Peru as a preventive Of the blight
Massachusetts, Poughman.
Take Care OF tho Farm Tools.
Farm tools will rust out sooner than
they will wear out. Many farmers in
ure their farm implements more by ex-
po-ure to the weather than by the use
on the farm. An implement which with
pood =, = ,uo,l6 1,ct tIroot1, 1,o,r, r,;l1