Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1891-03-21
Fertilizer Notes.
X. A. WILLARD.
Herkimer County, n. Y.

The Homestead.
Liberal manuring lies at the bot,
tom of big crops.
Too many farmers use commercial
manures in hap-hazard way, not
knowing what they are using or why
they use it.
a farmer doesn't have to be
chemist to tell what his soil needs.
Observation and experiment will
solve the problem more practically
than it can be done in any laboratory.
Only about 0ne-fOurth as much fer
tilizer is used on spring crops as there
is on wheat in the fall. There is no
doubt but what fertilizers will pay
the farmer just as well in the spring
as fall if he only applies them in the
proper manner and in the right guam
tity. All garden crops need fertiliz-
ing.
Farmers who always buy and pay
cash for their fertilizers seldom, if
ever, grOwl and grumble about the
"wOrthlessness of the stuff AT harvest
time, even if there is a partial crop
failure. The same cannot always be
said of the man who buys his fertiliz.
er on tick and expects to make the
next seasons crop surplus pay for it.
On all of our clay lands, that have
been reduced in fertility by bad man.
agement and successive cropping, a
complete fertilizer will always give
best results. On bottom lands, over
flow lands or heavily MANFRED lands
only certain elements of plant food
are needed, and these are supplied
by the farmer who is posted and
knows just what he is doing.
While farmers everywhere are
fighting trusts and combines they find
nothing of the kind to antagonize
among fertilizer manufacturers. Here
every tub stands on its own bottom
and the closest kind of competition
prevails. 1t isn't exactly true that
every branch of industry has combin-
ed against the interests Of the farmer,
as is sometimes asserted.
One Of the reasons why fruit does
not give profitable returns on land
long cultivated is lack Of mineral
plant food. The peach is usually
planted on light or sandy land, that
has at best but very little. mineral.
The seed cannot form without potash,
and lacking this the peaches fall off
soon after setting. Small fruit grow
erS also find mineral manures very
necessary in great many localities.
1t is folly for any farmer to contin>
lie the indiscriminate and blind use
of fertilizers. Go to work and post
up on the subject, so that you may be
able to tell what you use and why
you use it, in other words, under
stand your business. By putting
questions directly to the soil you may
obtain much satisfactory information,
and such experimentation is always
profitable. Soils vary so widely, and
results are so complex that farmers
must dig out very many important
questions for themselves. 1t will not
do to go blindly and trust to Provi-
dence in this matter.
The texture Of many kinds Of soil
is sufficient indication of their def
cheney. Sandy land is almost always
deficient in potash, and as rule all
fertilizers applied to sandy land
should contain a good per cent, of
potash. The presence Of potash
changes the texture of the soil. 1t
absorbs and retains moisture, and
this, with the mineral plant food it
supplies, enables clover to grow
where otherwise it would not. sta
bic manure, especially that from
COWS, is usually deficient in potash,