Nevada County picayune., 1888-09-26
MANURi.:G EXPERIMENTS.
An Interesting and Profitable Course f"
 ro.rc4sivr Farmers.

aggressive Farmers.
 That coma 'cial for;tli1ot may be Iunproftably uH,1, especially if 0pe-
 sided or containing only one or two of the three essential constituents of complete manure, is well illustratcd , in the results of experiments with TO- tations d6scrib ,1 in the eighth annual
 report of the Nv J,"sr Experiment
 Station. This is pl'ticlllriy true if
 the iand is already in hjgh state of
 cultivation. On one farm where tho yield of the unmanurad plots for a four-year- rotation wt> of ohelled corn 64 bushels oat3 6D bu<lI"lS. wheat IS bushels and hay :,i .hr increase with fertilizers wa- r'c.'.,r- proved not to have pail f,' tn"ir "',-t. In an other case. on the fertile fan of the station. no combination of l""tiliHing ingredients thHt cod be tried gave any increase of crop at all, or any that justified the oU.aa, for the fcrtil- izers used. On the s;mc lHd, stable manure of Il large dairy herd and of the
 
 work gave return of 9l cents in in- crease of crop over the unmanurcd plots for each ton of the manure ap- piled: as it cost at least about 20 cents a ton to haul and spread the manure, n cents d ton Was rcckOncd as its value lying in the yard measured in the market value of the crop produced by it on that soil, 60 tons per acre being applied in the course of the whole rotation. On another farm,
 where experiments were also conducted under the supervision of the station,
 and where the profit of the four-year rotation was obtained mostly from ono year of sweet potatoes, potash salts evidently made the largest contribu- ! tion toward profit; nitrogen compounds alone were tried without gain, phOs- phate was used at Il loss; but potash salts alone gave return Of lSO per cent. on the investment of Sl2 in 1 the fertilizer; and a complete manure, containing nitrogen com pounds and phosphate with the potash, i gave return of llo per cent on the investment of SIP 80. On this same farm stable manure gave a return of Sl.5O for each ton applied, at the rate of 80 tons per acre for the whole rOta-
 tion. But it i- plain that such heavy dressings of manure as these should be credited with the improved condi- tion to which they would necessarily
 raise the land by the large residucs left therein for following crops. On l the farm last mentioned a test of the extent of this improVs mont k HOW in progress, by a second rotation carried out on precisely the -8me plan d. the first as to manurj1e 'll cropping: this l test. 2t the time of the latcS' report of the station, had completed itS second
 year, in which sweet potatoes were raised on all the plots. The first crop ] of potatoes in the second year of the
 first rotation was worth S97 the sec ] ond crop, four years later sold al the same rate per bushel, was worth $20l.3S. Measuring the condition ! of the land by these two crops i of potatoes, and suppoeing that the
 season was about equally favorable in
 the two cases it may be stated that its producing power has been doubled by this continued heavy dressing of 70 tons of manure a year for six years. Or the matter may be looked a, in un- ! other way, as ~hOWn by thC director of the station: The unmanmcd plots dur i ing the whole period of six years that
 is, the whole of the first rotation and l half of the second, gave crops of corn, sweet potatoes. clover, mill"t and i S9l.5l per acre. The crops from the ! plot treated with stable manure for the ] same six year, Wore worth Sil9 26, or ] difference of T;i2S. 15 ta br credited tO the manure. Leaving out of accodnt 1 the cost of handling the increased crops. this would give S2. 13 as the pro
 ducing value of the manure per ton. i against Sl 90 if the c,.imtt' is cu.- l fined to the first four years only. An
 Improvement: in the condition of the soil ! was brought about simply by the con
 tinucd use of potash salts alone While gcttin" crops carh year that
 paid a large return on the cost of the 1 fertilizer, the crop of sweet potatoes ! in the second rotation wa, 3J per cent,
 better than the first; or, in other
 words, the land was 35 per cent. bet
 ter The value of these interesting [ results is of course largely local, but
 in one respect at lcao; their applica- ton is not confined to the farm where they were obtained. The important
 lesson that every farmer ran learn
 from them is the great .~cfulness of
 some sort of careful experimenting
 with manurcs, especially if he Use
 commercial fertilizers at all; or, if he
 does not use them. that he may profit
 by the help of such experiments in
 order to decide whether ii k wise to
 make any change in his practice. Of course. to havca field to set of inplots.
 to treat two of thesc for exam { pie, with stable manure. and two 1 with some commercial mixture. and tO