The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1882-11-21

s.4 AGRICgILTg1DkE.
The following extract is from an ad-
dress delivered by Hon. F. G. Fprman,
Of Baldwin county, Georgia, before the
Stale Agricultural Society, at the session
in Marietta, August 10, 1882, and will
prove very interesting and instructive to
farmers
Our lands then, we admit, are daily be-
coming poorer The first question to ask
is, what is the cause, for we know that
the cause is an artificial one, one of our
own creation, not natural one. Nature
never tears down, she always builds up.
Turn your lands out and leave them to
nature and you know they will improve.
The trouble then arises from some defect
in our system, some artificial cause for
which we the creators and promoters of
that system are directly responsible, for in
this world men always make systems,
systems never make men.
! am satisfied that the evil springs from
two sources. One we will call chemical or
scientific, rhe other mechanical.
Youa all know that; every crop draws
from the soil certain proportion Of its
fertility. Your land is, as it were, your
bank, in which nature had made deposit
for you of a certain amount of fertility,
both organic and inorganic, mineral and
vegetable. Now if you keep drawing
from your bank without making any new
deposits, experience teaches you that after
awhile, sooner or later, your deposit will
be exhausted, and then you know that
your drafts will be dishonored and re-
turned unpaid. Just SO with your land.
You plant crop after crop on it, draw
draft after draft upon its natural resources,
and expect them to last forever. Is this
common sense? Oh, but, says some one,
nature will reproduce what the crops take
away. This a fatal mistake Nature
can do much, but she cannot reproduce
elementary inorganic matter. Your plants
need phosphoric acid, lime, potash, mag
for their successful growth, and nature
cannot reproduce these when they are
withdrawn. Nitrogen and humus or or
ganic matter may be restored by natural
process-not 80 with inorganic elements.
These have resulted from the teaching
and weathering Of the soil for centuries,
and when exhausted it will take centuries
more to replace them with strong pos
sibility that even time will not act etfec-
lively for their restoration.
What plan then suggests itself to the
intelligent farmer as remedy against
this evil? He must plant crops, and
crops will exhaust his soil. Me thinks l
hear an answer to the question Oh,
says one, if were only good chemist l
could analize my land and find out in
what elements it is lacking, and then by
replacing these all difficulties will be OBJ
waited. Experience and experiment have
demonstrated that this plan won't do. In
the first place, it is too expensive, and in
the second, it is too uncertain and inaccu-
rate, and in all his operations it ia abso-
lutely necessary to success that the farmer
avoid extraordinary expense, and that
his work be done with certainty and ac-
curacy.
Soil analysis won't do, but you can an
alize your crops, and here is the solution
of this branch of the problem. Ascer-
tain carefully and accurately what ele-
ments, organic and inorganic. it requires
to make given crop, and in what pro-
for that crop so that it will return to the
soil what the crop takes in the proper
tions in which each element is taken, be-
ing careful to return each time little
more than the crop takes away. Now this
is not difficult to do, and doing this is an
te'asiUe farming. Suppose you intend to
plant crop of corn or of oats, from
which you expect to gather fifty bushels
per acre. If you are ignorant as to the
chemical constituents required to make
up your crop, Professor White, our able
State Chemist, will take pleasure, if you
write and ask him, in telling you exactly
how much your crop will withdraw from
the soil, what elements and in what pro-
portions. Then buy the chemicals, and
using muck, barnyard manure and cotton
seed as basis, 60 70 work and mix your
manure according to the formula fur
nished, then put it in the ground before
planting your crop, and don't you see,
your land can't be injured but will be
benefited. So with every crop you plant,
fertilize with direct reference to the re-
quirements of the crop if you wish good
results and steady, permanent improve
ment.
There is no farmer but would laugh at
the idea of attempting to make crop
without feeding his mule. Why, he will
say, my mule will die. So with your
land. If you crop it year after year
without feeding it, it will die as certainly
as your mule. There is only little more
time required in the one case than in the
other.
Whilst upon this branch of the subject
/ desire to call your attention to the very
important point, and that is the vital ne
cessity for complete manurement. 1t is
on account of the one-sided, incomplete
system of manurement that has come in
vogue among us, that 10 much prejudice
has arisen, and justly too, against the use
of phosphate ammoniated manures, COM
monty known as commercial fertilizers
As bearing directly upon this subject
will read you an extract from lecture
delivered in Germany by Professor Franz
Giersberg, a gentleman of such repnta-
ton as to have been employed by TIE
government to deliver lectures before the
agricultural societies throughout the EN-
pire. He says: "There is no doubt but
that the application of bone dust as well
as other phosphates TO the soil, may and
will produce large yields for several years,
the soil by reason of such application
(mainly in connection with nitrogen) be-
ing stimulated to more vigorous action.