The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-12-08
USE OF FERTILIZERS.
How They Increase the Richness
of the Soil.
THE EFFECTS OF GOOD TILLAGE.
Utah Changers Have Yet Much to Learn on
the Subject-The Wealth
in Store.
For THE SUNDAY HERALD

cognized necessity. Many years ago, the
renowned German chemist Baron Won
Liebig, emphatically declared that persist
ent cropping with no proper recompense
by way of fertilizing dressings on the soil,
would soon exhaust the richest of lands.
His ideas are now bidding fair to receive
full and universal recognition; though but
recently, an earnest discussion has been
INDUCED in by number of scientific agri-
culturalists, as TO whether thorough tillage
would not fully answer the ordinary pur-
poses of manures. The question is now
considered as answerable only in the mega
tive, though the effects of tillage are sur
prisingly beneficial through the breaking
up of the soil and the rendering soluble of
its otherwise unavailable ingredients. A
soil may comprise all the elements OF fer
tility; though these may be in an 1nsoluble
condition; in which case, the mere pre-
sence of such substances would be OF no
effect in modifying the condition OF barren
ness.
1t is plain to all that the materials of
vegetable structure must come from the
air, water, and soil, since it is with these
alone that the growing plants are brought
in contact. The idea of an absolute crea-
ton, in the sense of forming some
thing from the elements of nothing, is
absurd; and no less so in the
sphere of plant growth than elsewhere.
The sprouting seed requires certain ma
terials upon which to feed, and from which
to weave the fabric of its growth; and in
most cases the parent plant provides Tor
the offspring in this particular by storing
up a considerable quantity of food stuff
with the embryo, upon which the plantlet
may subsist till it has become firmly rooted
in its place and is able to gather food for
itself. After the family legacy has been
exhausted, the plant must work for its own
support, and this it contrives TO do by alb
sorbing the necessary elements of its struc-
ture, as far as found, from the soil, and
also by imbibing through its countless null
titudes of leafy pores certain gases from
the atmosphere.
There is little cause for fear that even
the rankest of vegetable growths will i'm
poverish the atmosphere of any of its
essential ingredients; for the aerial ocean
is in a state of ceaseless motion, thus in
surfing a continual fresh supply at any
place; and, moreover, numerous influences
operate with surprising efficiency to purify
and renew the air. But the soil Is no
such inexhaustible source of supply.
The impoverishing effect produced upon
the soil by any particular crop is in pro
portion to the amount of mineral matter
taken thereby from the ground; and, as the
fixed ingredients in as vegetable matter
may be determined by burning the same,
and noting the amount of the resulting
ash, a very easy method of investigation is
thus open to US. An example of an ex
IRENE exhausting effect is found in the to-
bacco plant. Observe the immense ash on
the burnt end of cigar by way of proof.
1t is known that dry tobacco leaves contain
not less than 25 per cent. of mineral sub
stance. A ton of dry leaves would there
fore remove from the soil upward Of five
hundred pounds of fixed matter; which
effect is about equal to that produced by
fourteen tons of wheat
A soil that is capable of supplying the
general elements of plant structure is con-
sidered fertile; and land that is devoid of
such is said to be barren. Between high
fertility and absolute sterility there are, of
course, many intermediate grades. All
plants do not contain the same ingredients,
and therefore do not make similar demands
on the land of their growth. A soil may be
fairly fertile for some species of crops,
while being practically barren for others.
According to the principal ingredients OF
their structure, ordinary farm crops may
be divided into three main classes: First,
the grains, in the composition of which
7pbOsphates predominant: second, the root
crops, such as turnips, beets, pota-
toes, ETC., in which potash and
soda are the leading constituents:
and third, the grasses, containing abun-
dant ouantiti9s of lime and silica. The
time honored process of rotation in crops
is based upon an understanding OF such
facts. for each of these three classes is In
cIuded in a well arranged scheme of rota-
tion But even with iudicious rotation,
the richest soil will in time show signs OF
poverty as crop after crop IS taken on, un-
less efficient means be adopted for return
IL +s.,1 ,,safD u
is usually attempted by the application OF
fertilizers.
AS to the kinds of fertilizers, much might
he SAID. To many farmers, nothing but
barn-yard manure seems to be known.
This material is of undoubted value, yet 1t
is far from being "cure-aL'' Tor every
form of soil malady. A particular held
may be impoverished for want OF phos
pilates and potash. which substances are
supplied by ordinary manure in small pro-
portions only; and the land may not be IN
pressing need of the other ingredients OF
the manure. Scientific investigation IS
now making it's influence felt in agricul-
tural practices; and appropriate fertilizers
for every case of land impoverShment are
now obtainable. Alkaline dressings, such
as potash and soda as also lime
ily procurable in a raw state, and
require little or no preparation; but phos-
phatic fertilizers are less common. vast
Quantities of guano are annually imported
from the bird-haunted islands OF the seas;
and when spread upon the soil, this mater
ial readily imparts its enrichlng lngred-
tents to the growing plants.
In some of the southern states, notably
in the Carolinas, immense deposits of rock,
rich in the fossilized remains of by-gone
animal life, are mined for the sake OF the
fertilizing substances therein contained.
This rock is put through simple process
of preparation, the principal stage OF
which is a treatment with sulphuric acid,
by which the insoluble phosphate COM
bounds are converted into the soluble,super-
phosphates. So prepared, the material IS a
concentrated fertilizer Ground bones are
highly esteemed as sources of phos-
pilates.
in Utah, prepared fertilizers are com
naratively unknown, though it would be
difficult to find a region in which there are
greater diversities of soils than hereabouts
MANY of the lands ordinarily considered as
hopeiessly barren because OF their
hkaline ingredients, may,s by !u-
dicious treatment with neutrallzlng
fertilizers, be changed into a
condition of blooming fertility; and in
many cases the required dressings are
within easy reach in the neighboring hills.
But the preparation of phosphate fertll-
izers is of most pressing need, and In TINS
enterprise on an industrial scale, Utah
could easily attain prominence. Her
almost irexhaustible deposits of fossilifer-
GUS rocks are almost untouched. The
writer has demonstrated by actual analysis
and experimental tests, that phosphate
fertilizers can be prepared from Utah ma
terials, excelling in sickness the best Caro-
lima products from to 10 per cent.
There are vastfossil- bearing strata in
Spanish Fork cafion, and extensive Lodges