The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1892-03-24
THE FARM AND HOME.
TO PREPARE CERTAIN GROUND
FOR A CERTAIN CROP.
= serious Question for tn.
Color OF Milk and Eutter-Dip the
Sheep Dog-Sheep Notes
and Home Hints.
Waste of Plant-Foods.

@sEsa. 7.g. ASAo AAAAuo a r@
Waste of Plant Foods.
Inc following essay was written for
the Practical Farmer and was awarded
the first prize:
How to fertilize a certain field for
a certain crop" is a question that
forces itself for consideration more
seriously every year. upon the mind
OF every tiller of the soil. Many of
US are confronted with the fact that
the supply of barn-yard anu as
usually saved, with what little can be
bought, is insufficient for fertilizing
more than a part Of the farm each
year;while sevearl years trial of COM
merclal fertilizers leaves room for
doubt concerning their profitableness.
Sometimes we can more than double
a farm or garden crop by their use;
while on another crop, perhaps the
same year; they would not pay for the
trouble of applying them. Occasion
ally they even to injure the
crop.
You may ask now, how We can hope
to increase the fertility of our farm
lands, so they will again raise the old
Tune crops. without buying fertilizers?
MY own observation, experience and
study on the subject. give me the fol-
lowing answer: Most farms have
abundant natural of plant
1000, but the greatest difficulty with
most farmers is to develop. save and
control If IL, a nroHtoh 1o 100000
certain amount of the plant-food
locked up in the soil. dissolves by
natural processes and becomes avail
able every year. We can here assist
nature by thorough tillage. Flowing
as deeply as the fertile top soil will
admit, and working it up very fine
n mellow, with harrow, cultivator
and roller, leaving it loose and open
to the action of SUI air and rain,
greatly aids in increasing this amount.
The soil is bravely struggling to be
more fruitful, even with but half a
chance. We should not refuse to give it
aid. Clover has been highly praised as a
soil renovator for rundown farms, and
l believe none too much, when prop
erly used in a rotation of crops. It
sends roots deep down into the soil,
to gather up the scattered particles of
plant-food-that are lost to the other
crops-bringing them again to the
surface, where they are most needed.
1t also. by some means, has the pow
er to obtain free nitrogen from the
air, work it over by assimilation, and
use it in it's growth and development.
Why need we despair of restoring our
rundown soils, when we can use
clover to gather the most costly and
most easily lost element of fertility,
from the inexhaustible stores of the
atmosphere? The farms ruination is
generally the result Of the farmers
own wastefulness and ~carelessness.
Stubble fields and gardens are left
bare all fall and winter, with no green
covering to gather and store up fer
tllity, as it becomes valuable after the
removal of crops, when they might
have been sown in rye or even oats.
to be turned under in the following
spring.
Manureis carelessly thrown out under
the caves in a scattered pile, where
the water from the roof runs off,
with its lest part. The liquid manur
runs down under the horse stalls and
pig pen floor in pools. where it soaks
into the ground, and is of no present
earthly use. or seeps from under the
buildings and is washed away by the
rains. Usually little effort is made to
convert waste products of the farm
into manure Straw is piled out in
open field OF b%arn-yard. where the
stock r allowed to tear down,
tranple under foot and waste it even
with plenty of room in the barn. Corn
fodder is hauled to the fence row and
lied over, " in rain, mud and snow,
the stocks scattered here, there and
everywhere. and then raked up in the
spring and burned. These are facts
of common, everyday occurrence. 1t
is no wonder with such wastefulness,
that our farms are becoming more
destitute of plant food every year.
There is no need of such waste.
1t will not cost you half so
much to have water tight floors
in your stables. as to con-
tinue with the loose, wasteful
plank floors you are O using. If
you doubt the truth of this, take the
floor from part of your stalls and give
them a good coat of fine broken stone
or gravel and cement and see if it is
not so. Feed everything in the stable
so you will have the refuse for an alb
sorbent. Arrange so as to put your
straw back into the barn when thresh-
ing, or haul it in afterward so YOU
will have it dry and easy to get for
feed and bedding. It is not so diff
cult to feed corn fodder in the stable
without cutting, as you might think,
where .stanchions and long managers
are used. The stalks thrown back
under the stock and kept level, Will
be trampled and broken up more than
one would expect, and will soak up
an immense amount of liquid manure.
See 1t you cannot arrange SO as to us g
clover in your rotation of crops, then
subscribe for three or four of the lead
ing farm papers. and study the prac-
tees of the best farmers of the day.
.EE rolor IF Mill, aus up,AA- E-a-