The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-08-07
Good Crops Favor Fertility.

An amateur farmer of my acquaint-
ance once remarked in conversation
about certain field: sit must be rich,
for | sowed wheat there a few years ago
and did not get five bushels per acre,
and it has not borne any crop to ex-
haust it since. AS the fertility has not
gone from the soil it must be there
STILL" This novel view of the good eff
feet of poor crop l am sure not one
practical farmer in hundred would
have taken. The fact is pretty general
ly understood that good crops are pre-
sumptive evidence that the soil not only
has been but is now rich, while a poor
crop is presumptive evidence that the
soil is sterile. 1t is true that crops take
fertility from the soil, and large crop
takes more manurial elements than a
small one. According to this theory,
with land of the same fertility success
sion of good crops should exhaust the
soil more than a succession of poor
ones. Yet practically am satisfied that
this is not the fact. There are more
ways of exhausting fertility than by re-
moving it in crops, and there are recu-
perative processes going on in all soils
which are favored by good crops and
hindered by poor ones. 1t is not the alb
solute amount of potash, lime and phos-
pilates in the soil that counts for the use
of crops, but only what is soluble and
available. 1t is here that the advantage
of the good crops comes in play. The
shade over the ground which the good
crop furnishes acts as a mulch, and
makes the fertility beneath more solu-
BILE. The nakedness of a poor field
tends to make it poorer. What is soluble
is washed away by rains, and the re-
mainder on heavy soils is locked in
clods and Jumps. l am not sure that
the absolute decrease in fertility by
poor crop is not as great as by good
one.
The roots of large plants growth
extend deeper and further than they do
where the crop is poor. True, they ex-
haust fertility, but their decay in the
soil is one of the most important of re-
Operative processes. What the plant
gains from the subsoil is as much added
to the fertility of the field as if it were
drawn thither from another place. 1t
effects even more than this, for roots
which penetrate the subsoil allow air
and warmth to 60 deeper, so that other
plants suffer less from drought. So large
a proportion of clover-roots 90 below the
cultivated soil that clover is rightly re-
garded as renovating crop. Practically
a field that has grown clover crop is
richer than it was before. Yet analysis
of clover ash will show that it has taken
considerable of mineral fertility,
especially of potash and lime, from the
soil. But if we put on a crop after
clover has been taken off, we find that
there is more plant food available for
use than before. 1t is probable that the
clover gets some of its substance from
the atmosphere. We know that the car
bon of all plants is derived from the car
bonic acid gas in the air. 1t is probable
that with clover and other broad-leaved
plants some of the nitrogen comes from
the same source, if not directly through
the leaves then indirectly under the
leaves by conversion of nitrogen in the
air to nitric acid and its absorption by
the roots. In this way the dense shade
of all big crops favors fertility because
it favors the conversion of atmospheric
nitrogen into available form for plant
food. Then, too, if nitric acid is formed
in the soil it will probably unite with
potash or some other mineral element
present, and render that also available.
The shade of growing crops thus adds
to the available fertility in two ways.
1t absolutely increases the amount of
nitrogen in the soil, and it puts more
of the mineral fertility in condition to
be used.
In poor, thin grain there is a much
larger proportion of valuable mineral
elements than in that which is plump
and good. There is as much gluten
(nitrogen), as much phosphoric acid
and lime in grain of shrunken wheat
as in grain of plump wheat. The ex-
ira size of the latter is starch, which is
only another form of carbon, and which
exists in practically unlimited quanti-
ties. AS there are more grains in
bushel of shrunken wheat than in
bushel of that which is plump, it is evil
dent that bushel for bushel the poor
grain eXhausts the soil most. The far
mer grows wheat for the flour, nature
grows it for seed. Hence ii the farmer
does not apply enough food for plants,
nature will scrimp it in the non-essentials
for seed and develop it as fully as posi-
BILE for reproduction. The thin, shrunk-
en- wheat will sprout more quickly than
that which is plump and good. 1t will
not make so strong plant, because the
starch of plump grain is the first plant
food.
The exhaustive process of grain and
fruit-growing is not in supplying what
man chiefly requires. The bran of wheat
which is used as feed for stock contains
most of the phosphates. The seeds of
apples and pears, the pits of cherries,
plums and peaches which we throw
away, exhaust the soil and the vitality
of the tree far more than does the de-
licious fruit, which is mostly a COM
pound of water and carbon. But this is
entering on another subject. What l
wish to impress is the Importance of
growing large crops, and of the very
best quality, if we would increase or
even maintain the fertility of the SOIL
VIM. j. F0Wler, IN Examiner and Chron-
icle.
Sulgrave and the WashingtOns.
THE Immediate ancestry of GeorOa