The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1886-09-25
ARTIFICIAL MANURES.

which puts the farmer imposition to pro-
vide his fields with more liberal dress
ing than he is able to give them from
his own supply of home-produced
natural manure.
Whoever seeks to arrive quickly at
this state of cultivation must make ex-
tensive use of those auxiliary or artif-
cial manures that are now offered HIM
by commerce.
As long as these powerful agents for
increasing the productiveness of land
were unknown, an advantageous alter
nation of crops was indeed the only
means of insuring large yield from the
farm, and this leads slowly yet surely
to the results; now, on the contrary, it
is in the farmers power, by buying adj
ditional manures, to attain his object
with far greater rapidity. The more ex-
tended employment of artificial manures
is an advance in farming that has
already opened up a new era. BY this
means the business of a farmer is be-
coming more closely Appropriated than
formerly to that of a manufacturer; for
while formerly our farming arrange
ments were conducted in the manner
which the quantity of manure produced
on the farm itself prescribed, we are
now free to cultivate, as may seem most
profitable, every plant which is adapted
to the soil. Yes, still more; we can
produce, as it were. with single effort,
fine harveSts from wOrn-out and poorly
MANFRED land; we can, in such a case,
secure in two or three years the same
results for which formerly ten or twelve
years were required. The farmer should
avail himself of artificial manures; Q)
Torender land more speedily productive;
(2) to improve quickly the condition
of land already much exhausted (3) to
raise the fertile land to the maximum
of productiyeness in general attainable,
or, what is the same thing, to make the
occupation of farming as intensive as
possible; (4) to be able TO command UNI
.interruptedly the most profitable rota-
ton OF crops in a pecuniary point of
view; (5) to strengthen and rGinvig-
crate poor and backward sowings, or
such as have been hurt by the severity
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shortest possible time a more abundant
production of animal manure. The last
observation will especially comfort those
farmers who have hitherto imagined
that artificial are about to supplant nat
ural manures, a suppOsition which will
of course be seen TO be untenabe when
it is considered that the former when
they have rendered proper service, will
rather displace themselves and make
their employment uncalled for For if,
by the agency of artificial manures,
fields are speedily brought into a state
of greater productiyeness, more straw
and fodder will also be produced, and
10y their assistance the stock can be so
increased and the supply of natural
manure so enlarged that the use of arti-
fetal manure is no longer necessary.
Whoever is now cOntentcd with the har-
vest which half-eXhausted or but par
tiaRy MANFRED field produces surrenders
of his own free will the full income de-
rivable from his land. The farmer, it
is true, requires larger capital to carry
on his business than in the usual mode
OF farming, but when the money which
he invests in the land is soon and surely
returned to him, with abundant interest
it is then, indeed, most advantageously
employed.
How do these manures produce theil
eflectp For what kind of soil and fol
what kind of crop are they especially
adoptedP
This is learned by reducing them &C
curately into their separate constituent
and by subsequently comparing thes,
constituents with those of the plants t,
which they are proposed to be applied
as fertiljzlng agents. In the eXc:ement
and urine of those domestic animal
which produce the ordinary stall manur
the farmer finds all the elements unteC
shat plants in cultivation require 70
their nourshment; hence he rightly re
cards them as a universal manure.
1t is otherwise with artificial manures
whose constituents are extremely var
GUS, and in which are seldom found a
the substances necessary for the food {
plants, but, as a general rule, only
few individual ingredients.
Hence the farmer should not regar
them as representatives or substitute
for stable manure, but rather as supple
mentary and accessory agents, b
which he is enabled to heighten and il
crease the power of the latter
Every practical farmer is aware tha
ne can not Supplant stall manure b
lime. gypsum, maturing salts, ashl
and the like, but may probabl
strengthen its action; so, too, precisel
with most artificial manures; and
must accordingly be of great impo
lance to the farmer, if he does not wis
to make experiments at random, an
thereby sustain considerable loss,
know beforehand the principal cOnsti
uents of the artificial manures he pr
poses to employ, in order that he m;
be able to form a judgement, concern
ing its probable modes of operation.
knowledge is not only nee
ed of the kind and quantit
of fertilizer required to be use
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