The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-04-03
Metals.
NEW YORK, April lead quiet.
Loss of Fertilizing Material in the Soil.

Loss of Fertilizing Material in the Soil.
Philadelphia Record.
The more soluble the fertilizer the more readi-
ly it enters into the composition of plants and
the easier it is carried away by rains and melt
ing SHOWS. The most barren soils contain fer
tilizing material, inert and inactive but subject
to surrounding influences. Every crop
whether small or large, is capable of disintegrat
ing and appropriating portion of the stored
up elements in the soil and when such crops are
returned to the soil, by blowing them under
they act as agents for the conversion of the in
soluble elements into available material. The
vegetable matter thus returned is not an addi-
ton of fertilizing material but portion OF that
which previously existed, changed by the growth
of vegetation into different forms. 1t is plain.
therefore, that succeeding crop will still
further increase the productive power of the
soil by utilizing the decaying crop, and also by
decomposing additional mineral matter in the
soil.
In order to avoid loss, however, of the fertility
gained by green manurial crops the soil should
be used continually, for as the elements are
rendered soluble they are carried away to Ger
tain extent when the land is unOccupied. Not
only must loss be avoided, but the proportionate
amount of each fertilizer be sustained. This is
demonstrated by experiment, for i'll England Sir
j. B. Lawes found that the action OF superphos-
pilates turnipS depended entirely upon the
amount of nitrogen existing in the soil. On one
plot all the produce was carried away, mineral
superphosphates being returned to the root crop
every year. On another plot the cereals, clover
and beans being removed, it was put in
turnips, and the turnips consumed on the land
by sheep. The barley crop which followed gave
twentysix bushels per acre on the plot from
which the crop was removed and thirty
six bushels on the plot upon
which the turnips were consumed The
nitrogen removed by the turnips estimated
at forty-two pounds per acre--a little more than
is drained away in the absence of vegetation
The consumption on the land of the tu1nips
would have returned forty pounds of the nitro
gen, though the extra ten bushels of the barley
would have removed only ten pounds of nitrogen
He accounts for the remaining thirty pounds of
nitrogen which. should exist on the plot that pro
duced the smaller number of bushels by stating
that when we use salts of ammonia nitrate
we recover in the first crop fully one-half of the
nitrogen supplied. The much smaller amount
obtainedsby feeding the turnips is due partly to
portion of the nitrogen being contained in the
solid eXcrements, which decOmpoSe slowly,
partly to the less active form of the nitrogen in
the urine, partly to the breeding of the sheep,
and partly to the washing of the nitric acid by
rain, the land upon which the roots are fed off
the earliest suffering the greatest loss.
These experiments should convince farmers
that the land suffers a loss annually by reason
of the soluble portions of the fertizing material
being washed away by rains the inSoluble pOr-
lions being slowly rendered soluble by the action
of the heat moisture and air. There is a great
loss when no crops are growing, and it is demon
strated that the yearly loss of nitrogen by wash
ing into the drains when no crops are permitted,
is equal 10 what would be utilized by the produc-
ton of % bushels per acre of wheat, 30 of oats,
"a of barley, 800 pounds of clover hay, ID bush
els OF beans and six tons of turnips, one of the
conclusions derived being that in wet seasons
manures have not the same lasting qualities as
i'll ordinary dry years. In estimating the value
of crops when plowed under the fact may be CON
sidered that clover and the legumes also appro-
pirate nitrogen from the air.