Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1884-08-16
Fertilizers Continuously.

New England Farmer.
The question is asked US very often
by those unacquainted with the use of
commercial fertilizers, Can fertilizers
be made to take the place of stable
manure for continuous use year after
year? Our answer has been that fer
tilizers may take the place of animal
manures under certain circumstances
and for certain kinds of crops. We
have never tried the experiment for a
longer term than six years, but, for
that length of time, a field treated
with commercial manures in place of
stable manure, gave equally heavy
crops, and left the land in as good con.
dition.
DIR. Hoskins has had a longer ex>
perience with what are termed COM
mercial fertilizers, in the cultivation of
bis nursery and fruit farm at Newport,
VT, and in recent editorial in the
Waterman says: ut has been almost
impossible to make visitors believe,
when they compare our little farm with
the sandy plain around it, that since
1866 it has not had, in all, enough
stable manure to make what we should
call one good dressing 1t has been
brought up from production of less
than one-third of ton of hay per acre
to the condition of a good cabbage
garden by the almost exclusive use of
ground bone and ashes. 1t has paid
good profit all the time, the entire bill
for manure and fertilizers averaging
less than $125 year, while the sales
have steadily risen from less than $500
to but a trife less than $4,000 annual
ly, not including the considerable fami-
consumption.
If we remember correctly, DR.. Hos
kins' farm includes some eight or ten
acres, perhaps less, and he has a good
muck bed that he draws from for sup
plying a portion of the heterogeneous
element needed in his sandy soil. The
muck also furnishes the vegetable mat
ter that commercial fertilizers usually
lack.
A reader of the Farmer recently
asked if we would expect from a mod.
crate dressing of fertilizer full crop
of Hungarian grass, upon a piece of
stiff clay soil that was badly run out
by long cropping without manure.
Our answer, given without the least
hesitation, was, that we should not ex~
pect a full crop of anything without
applying something to tighten the soil,
so as to let in the heat of the sun, and
let the water out after heavy rains.
No concentrated fertilizer can at once
take the place of strawy stable manure,
upon compact, worn out soil that
must have something material put into
it to Tighten it before it can be made
to produce full crop of anything.
If attempting to make a lean field
rich in short time, without regard to
cost, we would apply stable manure
beautifully. If time were of less ac>
count than cost we would till thor
oughly, and apply moderate dressings
of fertilizer for raising crops to plough
in. When the soil becomes light and
friable we would fertilize for such crops
as we desired to grow. If these crops
were such as to furnish an abundance
of stubble and roots to plough in, we
would have no hesitation about using
concentrated commercial fertilizers like
bone, potash, &C., continuously, in
place of stable manure, provided the
cost was in favor of the fertilizers. If
the crop were potatoes or other roots
that return little or nothing to the soil,
we would occasionally apply strawy
manure, or raise some crop in rotation
that would yield waste vegetable mat
ter to be ploughed in.