The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1885-01-30
riLLAGE.
g d Not Manure but the Means OF Rapid
" Consuming It.

i
| e d not Manure but the Means OF Rapid
ly Consuming II.
There is nothing new under the
sum-" A hundred years ago there was
precisely the same fuss made about IT,
lago of the soil as method of extract
ing fertility from it as there is being
made to-day. There is nothing new
either in the presentation of the old
matter, aud it is simply the bare fact
that farmer or two, for the sake of
making a novel sensation in the agri-
cultural journals, have been claiming
great and unusual results from excel
lent tillage of the soil, and in relating
their experiences have been arguing
that manure is of secondary consider
alton rs compared with the pillow and
harrow and cultivatOr. As with almost
every one-sided view of a question, this
is partial and illusory, for tillage is one
business and manurIng is another, and
VET one is quite useless without the
other; both being indispensable to each
other and to good and successful farm
irg. No intelligent farmer doubts the
usefulness and necessity of thorough til
lage: but only a very unreasonable and
ignorant one would doubt the useful
ness and necessity of thorough manuf-
ing. There has been q time when
some farmers have thrown away ma
nure as burden to be cast off rs quick
IL and easily as possible, but that period
has passed never to return, and the same
farmers are now eager to purchase ma
nure and fertilizers. knowing by ex-
pcriencc how Indispensable these are.
Bu5 at the same time there are many
farmers who do not perceive clearly
how tillage without manure, or manure
without tillage, are wholly iricompati-
bic with good and successful farming.
Manure is the food of the soil, tillage is
the function Of digestion, whereby the
digested food is prepared for plants, alb
sorbed and assimilated and so changed
to cellular tissue, of which the plants
are built up. There is an analogy be-
tween the process of feeding plants and
that of feeding animals, the soil serving
as the stomach by which the plant food
is prepared for the crops which feed
upon ito This will nc doubt be readily
perceived and acknowledged by every
intelligent reader. Chen it follows that
not only must food be supplied to the
soil in a fit condition for the use of the
crops. but the soil must be prepared by
thorough tillage for the reception and
the digestion of the plant food that the
roots may absorb it into their circula-
ton and assimilate it into their sub
stance.
Recent discoveries have greatly en-
larged our knowledge of the mutual
action which goes on between the soil
and the decaying organic matter which
it may contain. A vast and almost in
finite field of life and action is now
known to exist i'm the soil which is
vitalized by the oxygen of the atmos-
phere, and in which a process of nitri-
ncation is continually going on. A
world of invisible germs are constantly
Selling upon the particles of organic
matter, consuming them, converting
she inert nitrogen in them, by means
IF atmospheric oxygen, into nitric acid,
which then combines with the various
alkaline substances and forms nitrates
rpon which plants can feed, and which
are converted into the heterogeneous
matter of the cellular substance within
the plants. 1t is clear that this action
can only 90 on with vigor proportion
ate to the porous, fine and mellow con-
dison of the soil. This condition can
cniy be produced by tillage. Tillage,
then, is indispensable to the decOm-
position of organic matter in the soil
anu TO the production of Indispensable
nitric ac:d and It's combinations. I'll
lage, then, is only means: it fur
niShcs no matter or substance.
no. does il act in any way of
itself; it only enables the at.
moSphere 10 act upon what it
finds in the soil and to convert it into
plant food. Thus of itself, and with
out supply of material that Can be
acted upon, it is exhaustive of the fer
tility of the soil. as it increases the col-
sumptive processes of the soil without
providing anything to be consumed.
The sol is thus rapidly worn out by till
age, and the more SO as the tillaos is
more thorough and perfect. This ex-
plains why thorough tillage is produc-
tive and why it has led some persons to
believe in the delusive misleading md
dangerous opinion that "tillage is ma
nure." Of course it increases the pro-
ductiveness of the soil, but only by
drawing upon its reserve. And if any
farmer should be so misled as to depend
upon tillage for the increase of his
crops and neglect to provide manure in
exact proportion as he tills his soil II ore
thoroughly, he will all the sooner lind
his soil to be exhausted and the end of
its productiveness reached. Tillagr is
a good thing. So is q good appetite
and healthful exercise to a man. But
tillage must be supplemented with
adequate and proportionate food, just as
the mans physical exercise and good
appetite must. or starvation will en$ue.
Therefore tillage is not manure, but
simply the means for rapidly consum-
ing iL-N. y. Times.
TIME TO THINK.