St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1881-09-03
Fertility OF American Soils.


The term fertility, as now generally
used by writers on agriculture, express
es the amount of plant food that is pres
ent in the soil in form to be taken up
bv the growing crops. This fertility is
best measured by the crops which the
soil viii produce, but owing to so many
modifying causes, it is safe to judge OF
the state of fertility of any soil only
after three or more crops have been
grown. A soil may be rich, but for
some other reason produce. for exam
pie, only small crop of corn this year,
owing, 1t may be, to excessive dryness
or the reverse, to poor seed and other
modifying causes.
it is a natural question to ask whence
Yhis fertility comes,a and in what chemc-
al elements and compounds it consists.
In answering this question, the features
of an infertile or barren, or as it is most
frequently called, an exhausted sol, will
be brought forward as the natural Op-
posite of fertility. A fertile soil, one
that is capable under favorable circum-
stances OF producing a paying crop,
must contain all of those elements of
food that agricultural plants derive from
the soil, and, as before stated, in avail
able form. This last clause is of great
Importance, for the soil may contain q
full complement of food elements, but
have one or more locked up in some
insoluble form, in which state it is OF
very little use. A soil that has all these
elements of plant food, without their
having been added by the hand of man,
may be termed naturally fertile soil
one that OF itself will produce good
crops of grain, roots, etc. Such are the
rich virgin soil of all new countries, as
the vast areas of the Mississippi Valley,
when they were first broken by the
pillow, and much of the far West that is
now being brought into cultivation. A
soil that is naturally poor or infertile
may be made to produce paying crops,
by adding the elements of plant food in
the form of barnyard manure, or its
equivalent in commercial fertilizers.
In the same way, soil that was once
naturally fertile, but has become poor
or exhausted by constant cropping, may
be restored to it's original virgin fertil-
ity or kept in sufficiently fertile state
to produce good crops. This last is the
work of the farmer in all old countries;
the keeping up of the fertility Of the
soil is the problem, often perplexing
and difficult. that all farmers upon old
land have to work out during their
whole lives. With them the soil is a
"machine," or perhaps more evidently,
. "factory," in which the plants work,
and out of the crude materials supplied
to the soil, together with those fur
nished by the air, they make the sub
stance of their stem, leaf, fruit and
grain. In this sense large farm may
be thousand-acre s'factory'' where
grains and fruits, leaf and wool, are
made from the crude materials, which
must in good part be supplied by the
farmer to the soil. All of the farming
in the countries of the old world and
much of that in the older-settled parts
of the is Of this factory" kind,
where the most successful farmer is he
who knows best how much of the raw
material to put into the "factory,' and
how and when it is best to do it. He
is also the one who runs the grain and
leaf producing ''milp with the greatest
economy-with the least wear and tear
upon the machinery, so to speak, and
sells his goods at the right time and
place. and therefore at the greatest profit.
There is another style of farming
which is more largely practiced in
America than anywhere else; namely,
the farming upon now and rich sofia
soil that has a virgin fertility sufficient
to grow large crops, and no addition
of fertilizers of any kind is needed.
The fact that we have such land and
such farming is felt the world over,
and gives the American virg;n-soil
farmer certain important advantages
over all who must feed their soil be-
fore crop can be raised with success.
1t is simply process Of taking off from
the soil with no corresponding return,
and for a time the products Of grain,
beef, ETC., can be sold more cneaply
than the same can be grown where an
expenditure must be made in food for
the soil. But as fertility is so largely
dependent upon the amount of nitrogen
in the soil, and this is stored up only BY
previous generations of plants, any Sc
we're cropping-in which more nitrogen
is removed from the soil in the crop
than is formed and stored up in the
soil during the same period-will soon
er or later bring the most fertile soil
to state of exhaustion. There is,
therefore, an end, though it may be
many years hence, to the virgin-soil
farming in America. When this comes,
all will engage in the "give and take"
system, or = supply and demand prac-
tice; that is, supply the soil with its
quota of food, and demand in return a
fair compensation for the expenditure,
in the shape of a paying crop. When
this time comes, the competition be-
tween the farmers upon the new and
the old lands will be more healthful,
and our system of agriculture will be-
come evident, because common to all
Cor. CU2kntru Gentleman.