The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1881-02-24

underlying rock.H Ii the.rock contain, IN
sufficient quantities, all the necessary
constituents of fertile soil, its reduction
and disintegration will produce fertile
soil. By exhaustive cultivation we may
remove these constituents more rapidly
than they can be set free, and hence
reduce the productive capacity of the
soil, or make it poor. But if we will
only stay our hands, the rock, crumbling
under the silent action of the great forces
of nature, will again give us soil as
rich as it was when its virgin bosom was
first torn and tortured by the plow.
The soil, naturally poor, made rich by
artificial means, left to itself, reverts also
of necessity to its original condition.
The underlying rock is deficient in some
essential constituent of fertile soil, per-
haps potash, perhaps phosphoric acid.
To enable it to bring good crop, these
substances must be furnished in putres-
cent or commercial manures. You apply
the manure, the crop comes. All right,
you say, your land is now rich. Yes,
rich for year or two, rich as long as
your manures supply the deficient con-
stituents. Simply let it alone, and it be-
comes poor again. The manure is
exhausted. and the rock, as it disinte.
CRATES, cannot supply, for it does not
contain, sufficient quantities of those
essential constituents, potash and phos-
phoric acid.
Hence piece of land, naturally rich,
but now poor from drastic treatment,
will show the effect for many years of a
liberal application of manure. With
this help, the natural disintegration of
the mineral matter of the soil and sub.
soil supplies to succeeding crops all the
inorganic food they require. But if the
soil be formed from poor rock, the effect
of the same manure will be far less per-
nlanent, for successive crops must
depend, as to certain mineral constitu.
ents of plants, chiefly upon manures and
little upon the soil.
To know, then, the history of.a tract
of land is an important factor in the
determination of its value. Ifit has been
nursed from original infertility up to
respectable productiveness by heavy
expenditures of money for manures, it is
nevertheless far less valuable than
tract whose productive capacity was
Originally twice as great, but has been
reduced to the same point by exhaustive
tillage. Land, then, how poor soever
now, if originally rich, constantly tends
to regain its own, and, with little extra
help and kind treatment, will make
sensible advancement every year, and
will soon accomplish the result Land,
however, which may be rich now by
manurial applications, but was originally
poor, will demand all the time the same
generous treatment, or revert to its orig
inal barrenness. Thus we see that two
given areas may be equally productive
now, and yet possess altogether different
values.
The failure to notice this distinction,
to trace the history Of a farm, has led to
grievous blunders and irreparable disas-
ter. To buy poor land once rich is
wise investment, to buy at moderate rates
rich land that was originally poor, may
be judicious under particular circum-
stances but to buy at almost any price
land that is poor and was born poor, is
simply to get possession of q money sink.
Herald.