The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1886-03-18
guaersan gnteltigeneer,
FARMERS COLUMN,
Ea3e Communications from our Farmers
on any matter pertaining to agriculture,
are respectfully solicited for this cOltmn.
Commercial Fertilizers.


In recent issue of the Amcrcan Far
mer, Prof. Puryear, of Richmond Col
lege, gives dissertation on the subject
of commercial fertilizers. He says:
No department of industry has grown
to such enormous proportions in the last
quarter of century as the manufacture
of concentrated fertilizers. Their use is
well nigh universal, aud all the States
are taking steps to protect the farming
class from imposition. These efforts are
producing the best effects. The pur.
chaser has guarantee that the article
he purchases is not a worthless mixture,
for the manipulation must show, from the
analysis of the agricultural department,
the value of the goods he offers to the
public. They must be what they profess
to be, or else The trick will be speedily
exposed. The reports of our State com.
missioners of agriculture almost uni.
formly give the pleasing assurance that
the manipulators are doing their best to
furnish honest goods, and to conduct an
honest business.
But despite all this, there is vast
diversity of views among intelligent
farmers as to the value of these fertil.
izers. To some they have opened the
pathway to success; to others they have
been delusion and snare. Sometimes
they act we'll for few years, and then
when large investments have been made
they fail to act as they once did. They
have become, so it seems, inert and
worthless.
We believe that there is, in many
cases at least, an easy explanation OF
these contradictory experiences. We
venture the remark that those have been
generally successful who, while using
commercial fertilizers, have not relied
upon them supremely, but have used
them to get more land in grass, aud have
never abated their efforts to give back to
the soil all the vegetation possible, and
to raise all the animal manures they
could. The soil of a farmer, SO using
commercial fertilizers, does not become
poorer with each revolving year in
organic matter, but richer. This organic
matter in the soil, valuable for other
functions it performs, is really the expla'
nation also of the prompt and full action
of commercial fertilizers.
Let us examine this point little mora
closely. Every solid fertilizer is abso
lutely inert as long rs it remains a solid
Solids to get into the circulation of the
plant must cease to be solids. The capil
larry tubes of plants are too small to ad
nit the most comminuted solid matter
1t can only get in when water has dis
solved it; for when so dissolved it is a.
liquid as the water itself. Ground bone
and the alkaline salts may be in the soil
but we have to rely upon water to bring
them to the liquid state, and put then
where the plant can use them. If ther,
is not water enough to do this, or if, TO
any cause, water cannot dissolve them
they are as inert and worthless as 81
much sand. Now, the solvent power o
water is not constant, but variable will
changing conditions. Water impregna
ted with carbonic acid has muci
stronger solvent power than ordinar.
water. Anybody can prove this. M
laboratory nor apparatus is necessary TO
the purpose. Our breath is charged
with carbonic acid. Blow youl breath
through straw into wineglass hal
full of clear lime ater. The water be
comes turbid at once. Why? Carboni'
acid has combined with lime and formed
the carbonate of lime, which is distribut
ed through the water in a state of me
chanical suspensil.. producing the tur
bid or milky appearance. 1t is undis
solved. But if we blow through tht
water five or ten minutes longer, thi
turbidness disappears; the water be
comes perfectly clear and limpid as a
first. The carbonate of lime has beer
dissolved, and hence has disappeared
from sight, as the water becomes more
fully charged with carbonic acid.
From this simple experiment we learr
the important fact that the solvent power
of water is increased as it become!
charged with carbonic acid. Under ordi
nary pressure water absorbs its own vol
ume of carbonic acid, but more with
greater pressure.
Let US now make the easy application
to the subject in hand. The decomposi
ton of vegetable matter in the soil j:
always attended, among other things
with the evolution of carbonic acid. The
water absorbs it, and 30 has its solvent
power increased. Substances which
would have remained inert in the sol
are consequently dissolved, and gel
abundant access into the vegetable cir.
culation. In such cases the fertilizers
act; the phosphates of lime and of mag
nesia, the alkaline carbonates which
they contain, now do their duty. Water
brings them up into the plant, and its
vital energies appropriate them in the
formation of its compounds.
This, in our judgment, is the only
proper way to use commercial fertilizers.
Used in conjunction with decaying vege-
tation and putrescent manures, they may
he relied upon to do full duty, and to
make remunerative returns for the out
lay involved in their purchase.
But the temptation is strong to act
otherwise; to rely upon them chiefly
and supremely. A man applies them to
land, having, we will say, a suficiency
of organic matter. The result is salts.
factory. The crop of cotton or wheat