The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-01-29
CHEMICALS AND GLOVER.

On many eastern farms il appears to
have been proved that grass sod and
chemicals make better and cheape,
dressing than stable manure. This svs.
tenn of special farming has been car.
fied on some Is years in Cranberry. N.
j., with such successful results as tc
create widespread interest. A com.
munity of farmers there are making
money at producing hay, potatoes, corn
and wheat-keeping as little live stock
as possible.
| Four crops are grown - potatoes.
wheat, grass two years and corn. The
potatoes are planted in drills with over
1900 pounds of high grade fertilizer
to the acre, or 1000 pounds broadcast
before planting and 500 or more in the
drills. The potato ground is plowed
and seeded to wheat in the fall with
timothy, with clover added in the
spring. After two years of grass what
| stable manure is made is hauled cut in
summer and spread on the sod-the aft
ermath being permitted to grow and
decay on the ground. This is all
plowed in the spring, and the ground is
planted to corn, to be followed the next
spring by potatoes, and so on through
the rotation. The theory of this sys-
tenn of fertilizing is that the heavy
dressing of potato fertilizer will not
only produce profitable crop of pota-
toes, but will leave enough fertility in
the soil to maintain the wheat and
Tho tohI -.
sod are used for the corn, because corn
is the great scavenger of the farm-bet-
ter able to appropriate the coarser ma
nures than any of the other crops.
Mr.. Fl. w. Collingwood, who has in
vestlgated this system of special farm
ing, says in his book on chemicals and
Clover" that he does not believe that
any stable manure farm in the country
OF 100 acres can show larger sales of
the four staples-wheat, corn, potatoes
and grass-or show one-half the profit
in time and money that chemicals and
clover make for one of the New Jersey
farmers, alreadJ alluded to. The chem
lcal farmer has the following creed:
supply full meal of the cheapest
manure to the best plants Of the crops
that suit your market and farm"
Chemical fertilizers for these farmers
arc cheaper than stable manures for
several reasons, which Mr.. Collingwood
gives as follows: 1. Matchmaking does
not pay, and the cost of hauling and
spreading city manure is too great. 2.
The plant food in chemical fertilizers
is more available and better suited to
the wants of the potato plant than that
In stable manure. 1t costs less than
the grain that must be fed to stock to
give stable manure any value. Strong
clover sod, with chemicals fed directly
to the soil, gives better, cleaner and
cheaper manure than clover hay and
grain fed to farm animals. 3. On
compact, level soils fertilizers are as
permanent as stable manure. No rain
can wash them so far into the soil that
the roots Of a clover plant cannot fol-
low and capture them. Without clover
they might be lost; with clover, never.
Farming with chemicals and clover
is special farming. A farm must pos
sess certain natural characteristics in
order to make this system profitable.
1t must be level, or nearly SO, well
drained, easily titled, capable of grow
ing clover, near good market, and
with fair proportion of naturally good
potato ground. The best way to start
such system would be with the corn
crop, using all the stable manure pos
sible, and following with potatoes,
using 1900 or 1900 pounds of ferti-
lizer per acre, with wheat and grass to
follow. The more fertilizer used the
cleaner and more careful the needed cul-
tivation.
A system of chemical farming must
include some crop that is largely water,
which makes quick growth, sells at a
good price and can give large crop
per acre and utilize most Of the nitro
gen in the fertilizer. With the major
lty OF farmers, potatoes will fill this
place better than any other crop. Chsm-
ical farming will pay in any locality
where the cost of chemicals and clover
sod is less than that of the manure
made from clover or other hay and
grain. The common objection to chem
ical farming grows out of the fact that
this comparison of manure cost has new
er been fairly made.
Growing Seed Potatoes.
The New York potato exhibit at the
Worlds fair did much to advertise the
excellence of the states potatoes. and