Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1889-05-11
Fertilizers.

what one reads in the agricultural
papers, and what one hears in agri-
cultural andhorticultural convention;
that the commercial fertilizers here
tofore so much condemned and
neglected, are rapidly coming into
fashion. Farmers are learning that
even on stock farms there is not
manure enough made annually to
restore lost fertility to ten per cent. of
their acres; that it is out of the
question to obtain it elsewhere, and
even if it were, the first cost of the
material and the expense Of the
hauling are double the price of a
good fertilizer that will yield twice
the returns for the outlay. AS for
fruit-growers, they know it is not a
profitable or a safe practice to use
manure in its green state, and that it
must lay for months to rid itself of
the nitrogen that promotes too rank
growth and DEVELOPS wood and
foliage at the expense of fruit. AS
we have said before, we now repeat
let not the manures and fertilizers
made on the farm, in the fruit garden
or the orchard, be carelessly handled
or neglected, but used where they
will do most good; green manures
and refuse vegetable substances to be
spread on thin and wet lands, and
thereafter plowed under to lay till de-
composition has taken place.
OF the choice of fertilizers as to
composition and of the brands Of
different manufacturers, we have
nothing to say further than that
those rich in nitrogen and potash are
suited better than others to thin soils
where vegetable matters is wanting,
and the phosphate ones to those soils
where there is more or less DISPOSE
ton to make stalk and leaf growth at
the expense of fruit. Thus many
rich, deep soils produce heavy
growths of weed in the cotton plant,
with little fruit, and with that little
a disposition to blight and rot ; as for
corn, the size and height Of the stalks
are enormous and the caring trifling.
Here is where the phosphate fertili-
zerS help the fruiting and the caring
in very striking way.
But there is another, and likely to
be one of the greatest, benefits to be
gained from the use of fertilizers that
we have heard little of. 1t is this,
that they are the most efficient
agencies to overcome the insect
enemies of crops. This they do by
promoting so vigorous a growth the
assaults are repulsed with little loss of
vitality, and the plant reaches COM
plete development at the proper
time. Or, perhaps, there is another
explanation, that healthy and vigor-
GUS vegetation repels its fungus and
insect enemies somewhat in the same
manner that fat and healthy stock do
that are seldom infested with lice and
other insects, or those diseases arising
from fungus germs.
OF how insects in the case of grain
and vegetables have been beaten off,
or got the better of, there are two
cases known to the writer. In the
spring of 1887, the yeai of the great
drouth, the chinch bugs threatened to
take or did take nine-tenths of the
wheat crop in Southern Illinois.
Desiring to try the effects Of fertili-
zers, with the object in view as
stated above, Professor Forbes, State
entomologist Of Illinois, and Professor
McMurtrie, of the Illinois University,
associated their ideas and labors on
the subject, and caused some pieces
OF wheat to be treated with the
potash and phosphate fertilizers,
Though undertaken some weeks
later than would have been best, the
experiment proved nearly a COM
plete success, the fertilized wheat
making nearly full crop, alongside
of other wheat not fertilized, where
the crop harvested was nothing but
straw, and not much of that.
Drought prevailed in Champaign
county in the summer of 1888, and
those who planted cabbage saw them
whiting away under the combined
forces of heat, drought and the Euro
pean cabbage worm. This writer
seeing patch near his place going
the way of the rest, obtained leave Of
the owner to experiment with it
The cabbages, some fifty, set in
naturally rich and highly manured
soil, were SO nearly taken by the
worms as to be unfit for the table
VI