The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1890-12-17
DeLand, Fla Wednesday. December II. 1890

CIR THE FLORIDA AGRICULTURIsT.
Orange Tree Fertilizing and the Con-
version Of sulphates.
Ultimate results as to the dissolution
and absorption of Fertilizers are as yetun-
determined. The conflicting and varying
conditions of climate, soil, moisture and
materials with which different expert
mentors have to contend, make the re-
suits ofmuch of their work contradictory
and incOnclusive, so that many like our
friend BILLY Neeld," trying to follow the
the record of such work, are fatigued
with the Technology of agricultural
chemistry and conclude the good old
farming ways of their fathers are best al
ter all, although they involve excessive
physical labor or the nagging routine OF
stock farming and are not positive or
complete in supplying plant nutrition.
The recent discoveries Of the part mOlds,
ferments and microbes play in the decay
OF dead and growth of living plant tissue
have complicated the study of what was
formerly thought to be chemical action
between organic and inorganic matter,
and it will probably long continue an
open question as to when the chemical
and the microbes take up and complete
the changes.
This new branch of investigation
leaves our standard books behind the
times and opens up field of vastly more
Importance than the analysis of soils in de-
termining the application of plant nour-
ishment.
Says Prof. FARMLAND recently, "This
decomposition of vegetable and animal
matter is of the very greatest Importance
in nature, for it is by this means that the
fertility of the soil is maintained. Thus
it is one Of the most elementary facts in
practical agriculture that if crops are
continuously grown on a piece of land,
the latter becomes exhausted, and that
some form of manure-generally refuse
animal matter-has to be added in order
to restore its fertility. Now the exhaust
ed soil is not rendered fertile again by the
refuse animal matter itself, but by the
products of decomposition, notably am
mOnia, to which this refuse animal matter
gives rise, and in modern agriculture the
fertility of the soil is often restored not
by the application Of farmyard manure
ii. e. refuse animal matter), as was for
merly the invariable practice, but by the
actual addition of ammonia to the land.
But this ammonia, which is the primary
product of the decomposition of dead
animal matter by cro-organism, is it.
self capable of undergoing further changes
through the action Of special organisms.
For just as alcohol is in the presence Of
the mycoderma aceti made to combine
with the oxygen of the air and is trans
formed into acetic acid of vinegar, so
ammonia in the presence OF certain mi
crobes, which have succeeded in isOla-
ting, is made to combine with the oxygen
of the air and becomes converted into nj
trous and nitric acids.
These microbes which transform am
monia into nitrous and nitric acids, and
which are generally known as the nj
trifying organisms, are exceedingly re-
markable on account of the extreme sim
plicity of the food which they require for
their nourishment. Thus whilst some
organisms are so extremely delicate that
like invalids; they can only subsist on
such highly. nutritious substances as
blood, milk, beef, Jelly or concentrated