The patron of husbandry. (Columbus, Miss.) 1875-1883, 1880-04-24
How 10 Restore Fertility to Thou.
sands of Exhausted Farms.

means StdSHdliOH, pOVcTty ana Wdnt OH
the other hand, fertility means individual
general prosperity, and Ma
tional wealth. That there are thousands
of exhausted farms in the "old States is
self-evident. If the complaint is not uni
vc-sal, il is general, that the crops of these
older fields do not pay the cost of cultiva-
ton, and il is better for the farmer to emil
CRATE to the new lands of the West and
Northwest than to undertake their reno
walton, even if this is possible. In many
cases the complaint is undoubtedly sus-
tanned by the fact; but it does not follow
that such soils can not be improved, or
that emigration to new country would
pecuniarily benefit the farmers condition.
/ honestly entertain the opinion that in
majority of cases it would not. If our
exhausted lands can not be made produc-
tive, and by yield above cost pay for the
Improvement, unavoidable necessity will
compel them to their abandonment But
that is not admitted; and it is believed
that other causes than poor soil are potent
in swelling the great tide of emigration
in fact this is often put forth to hide the
real cause. But be this as it may, who
ever goes or who remains, the exhausted
soils are here, and ruin or their improve
ment are the only alternatives.
w nat Ais cXuduStCO lanO! why does
it refuse to respond to the efforts of him
who tills it? When the fields of the Eng
lish farmer fail to produce wheat or tur-
nips, he says the land is sick of turnips I"
or wheat, as the case may be. Are our
fields, in like manner, sick of corn, clover
and grasss They probably are and if
SO we should act precisely as would an
intelligent physician when called to see a
sick member of the family. Then let US
diagnose this land disease. Much of
it is SO sick that at the present time it
will yield no wheat at all some returns
from Z to II bushels per acre, from Is to
20 of corn, Is of potatoes, goo pounds of
hay. These fields when titled by our
fathers produced per acre 80 bushels of
wheat, 200 of potatoes, 90 of corn, and 2
tons of hay. Why this difference? The
mineral and chemical composition of the
soil is the same now as then.
Their. has been no physical change or
loss of soil material, no appreciable dimi-
mutton of its quantity; it is all here so far
as We can discern. The same sun and
rain impart their influence to it; the same
air floats over and penetrates it and the
implements with which it is now turned
and pulverized are better than those of the
fathers. Between its past of productive
thing been done to this soil which has
secretly, and by slow degrees impaired its
constitutional vigor?-has it been over
worked, improperly or insufficiently fed.
If SO, this may be the cause of its sickness
Nothing has been done to it, however, but
to till it and crop it, The tilling could
not injure it; the crops it has produced
must therefore have caused its present
condition, and to them we look for an ex-
PLANTATION.
WHERE PLANTS GET THEIR FooD.
Plants, by organs provided for that
purpose, gather the materials used in
building their structure from the soil and
from the air. OF their air-dried weight,
our agricultural plants, on the average,
are about o5 per cent. of atmospheric ma
terial and per cent. of soil substance,
though there is marked variation from
this proportion in some plants. Exactly
what the material is which enters into the
structure of plants, and the form and
manner in which they gather it, is inn
portant for our purpose to know. They
are compound of many different ele-
nents; the latter is quickly effected by
fire. Take, for example, a block of white
oak wood, weighing 100 pounds, air dry
and burn it. About..oS pounds, under the
This woody material in its plant form
was hard and dense like iron, and tough
and elastic as steel; but the fire has
changed it to smoke and gases, and it is
diffused in the atmosphere from which in
some form the organs of the plant gath
cred in. The two pounds remaining after
combustion. we call the ash of the plant.
This test, though it destroyed the struc-
tnre of our plant and separated it into two
classes of substances, does not give us the
elements which combined to form it. But
we know that the dissipated portion was
the gases, carbonic acid, oxygen, hydro
gen, and nitrogen, and that they were
gathered from the air principally by the
leaves, and by vital processes within the
plant were changed to the form and given
the quality which characterizes the oak
But the ash has no resemblance to the soil
of the field, even under the microscope,
analysis alone determines its character
and origin. BY this process we find it is
a compound Of silicon, lime, potash, mag
nesia, soda, phosphoric and sulphuric
acids and iron.
HOW PLANTS GATHER FOOD.
To the farmers eye, the soil contains no
such substances, but only grains of sand
and some unknown fibrous material. The
chemist, however, finds in soil particles
are compounds of the same materials he
separates from the ash, and is positive
that 1t was from this source the plant OBJ
tanned them; but hozv is to us the impor-
tant point. The soil feeding organs of
plants are their roots, and these in the
main are mass of fine thread like fibres,
with no power but that of absorption
Whatever acid action or dissolving in
huence they may have on hard soil parti-
cles, the real work they perform is that Of
gathering water, and by diffusion carrying
1t upward to the stem and leaves. Solid
substances, even in suspension and how
ever small, they can not take or convey;
and if they gather lime, potash, and other
elements, they must be first dissolved out
of the quartz, feldspar, tale, mica and
other minerals which compose the soil
substance, and be conveyed into the plant
by the, ascending water. The SOL SUBJ
stances named, though but a very small
propcEpon of the mass of all plants are
indisrev' cable to their development: but
they are absolutely beyond the gathering
power of the plant if not in a solvent
safe, however abundantly they may be
contained in the mineral compounds Of the
soil. "A potato plant may send its rootlets
into soil composed Of potash feIdspar,
and a wheat plant may extend them all
through the, tinterstices of a phosphate
nodule in the Charleston basin. and the
former perish for want of potash and the
latter for phosroric acid, because those ell
cfnents arc net in an available condition