The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1888-08-30

MORNll
TO KEEP FAT FARMS.
A Paper Read Before the West Michigan
farmers Club.
T5 ttalntain their fertility ne should
SO cultivate crops aid .ts6 them au t1Qt to
waste the fertilizing elements. As a
general practice, feed ont all the hay and
grain and coarse fodder on the farm, and
ifyou sell any, try and return to the farm
by the purchase of cheaper foods or fer.
tilizer all or most of the essentials sold
off from the farm in hay, grain, etc. So
crop and cultivate the farm that the
elements Of fertility now locked upin the
soil, in such combination that the grow
ing crops cannot Utilize them; tiay be
released and become soluble, to the end
that plants can have the proper food and
in quantities to make healthy growth.
Sell from the farm such money products
as will least exhaust the soil, and at the
same time give fair and profitable re-.
turns fSr sabittl and Muscle and brains
invested. So farm it as to sell as little
hay and grain from the farm as possible,
except upon an extraordinary demand
during high prices for the same but sell
instead milk, butter, cheese, meat, we'll
bred live stock, wool and fruits; as the
latter removes less fertility from the
farttl than the former, for the money
Received.
Farms now riSb can be kept SO by
.lndicious cropping and feeding; properly
outstanding and applying all the manure,
that the farm and stock can make, and
SO cultivating such land as the farmer
may work as to release from combination
8 portion of the latent plant food in the
soil.
Farms now comparatively poor can
be made rich in time by green manur.
Ing with rye aud clover, chemical fertili.
zers, and by the keeping Of stock and
feeding to tue same crops grown on the
farm and as much Of purchased pro.
ducts as can be bought for profitable
feeding.
The fertility in good farm that has
neyet been abused is practically mex.
haustible if rightly managed. Many of
our best farmers, blest with strohg hofse.
sense and keen insight, have found this
to be so in their own experience. They
had no great amount of book knowledge,
but they had learned>by comi6g IN con.
tact with good farmers who had precsd.
ed them in the work, and by observation
and experience, what was necessary to
be done to keep up theirfarms.
five needed other proof of the fote-
going statement other than what ne have
gathered by observation and experience,
We have itin the many repeatedly authen.
ticated and recorded experiments made
BY sound scientific men in this country
as we'll as those in older countries-men
who have made the science ofagrictlthre
a life long study. From tables prepared
by them we gather facts which stagger
our belief unless we stop to consider the
great resources In nature and the una
vailable plant-food stored in the sod.
It has been found beyond question that
the more essential elements in plant food
consist of only three, viz: nitrogen,
Potash, and phosphoric acid. All the
other elements seem to be abundant and
always available in.most soils; but these
three, Of some Of them, are often lacking
in an available form where soils have
been long under cultivation, orif not
lacking, are locked up in combination
beyond the reach of most plants, and
must in some way be unlocked, or sup
piled arti6cially, or we can have no
healthy plant growth. These elements
ifMs must supply the soil with them;
have q certain and almost fixed value
the world over, like gold and silver
Soluble nitrogen is worth over 16 cents
per pound, potash $ cents, phosphoric
acid 8 cents. Ina ton of timothy hay
there are 80 pounds of nitrogen, worth
$3.50; 40 pounds of potash worth 81, and
IA pounds of pbosphoric acid, worth
s1.12-total value in one toa of hay Of
these elements, s7.s2. This 1872 is what
this ton Of hay would be worth to the farm
for manure, provided it should become
necessary to buy commercial fertilizers
such as bone dust. superphosphate, etc.
to keep up the fertility Of the farm. i
the farmer sold $500. worth of hay al
$3.50 per ton (4O tons), he would sell ii
nitrogen, potash and phoaphoric acie
that which he could not get back for lea'
than s3l6.SO; $500 worth of clover hay
az $40 per ton would remove the same
elements to the value Of 1865; ; $500 worth
of corn, s1.So; of wheat, at 81 pur bush
ell, 1925; $500 of wool $50; $500
Of milk and butter. s3S; $500 of fruits
much less than either; $500 of cottor
and tobacco, more than any two of th'
others.
Now, could we feed this hay and grair
on the farm in the production OF mill
and butter and wool and meat, and &c
enough in the products to pay for the
hay and grain we would retain betweer
IS and so per cent. of these fertilizint
elements on the farm, as only about II
per cent. of these elements are appropri
ated by the animals; so that if VI
ppstured sheep in the summer, aud feet
the hay iu winter, and sold wool ant
mutton to the value of $500. we woult
remove from the farm only $50 worth o