The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1895-02-20
Some Facts and Speculations in Fertiliza-

Practically all soils contain definite
amounts of mineral ingredients suitable
and necessary for plant growth, but no
soil contains these elements in mex
haustible quantity. We hear much of
inexhaustible soils, but there are none.
The best illustration of this fact is a
bank account. On a given day man
may have very large surplus in solv-
ent bank. Whether that shall continue,
depends entirely upon his subsequent
checks and deposits. Constant check
ing against the largest account will
eventually oblterate it unless the de-
post slip appears at the receiving tel
ler's desk quite as often as the check is
handled by the paying teller. Just so
with a soil however fertile. The
farmer or fruit grower who continually
makes drafts upon his soil for those es-
sential ingredients, nitrogen, potash and
phosphoric acid, without due replenish-
ment will exhaust it eventually, and
within a comparatively brief period, no
matter what or where the land is. The
study of proper fertilization is taking a
far higher rank in these days than ever
before, and as farmers learn more of
scientific culture-book farming, if you
are every year becoming
less confident of "inexhaustible soils"
and know that they cannot cheat nature
in the transac ton of her business. If
there be no potash in the soil there will
be no fruit, and if there be no nitrogen
there will be no wheat.
But it must be confessed that there is
still much to be learned regarding the
broad subject of fertilization. 1t has
been fully established that certain plants,
alfalfa, and in fact all the
clover and bean family are able, in the
mysterious processes of growth, to
gather from the air portion of the nj
trogen required for their nutrition. The
great advantages of these plants as fer
tilizers is thus explained. By turning
under a crop of clover, alfalfa, or cow
peas much heterogeneous matter is thus
transferred from the air to the soil at very
slight comparative cost. With these
facts in mind experimenters have lately
been searching among the plant family
for those which can be ascertained to
take from some hidden source, whether
in the soil or elsewhere, other essential
ingredients of plant food not hitherto
fully recognized. In this direction GER
tain experiments were undertaken last
year at the Experiment Station in
Maine to learn the powers of certain
plants to appropriate phosphoric acid.
While the time thus far devoted to this
line of experiment has been limited, and
the results obtained not wholly cOnclu-
sive, yet they indicate that turnins have
the power to readily take phosphoric
acid from finely pulverized phosphate
rock, and that wheat, barley, peas and
corn possess the same powers in more
limited degree. Potatoes and beans ap-
peared to derive no benefit whatever
from such fertilization. Other expert
ments in the same direction are being
made and the probabilities now are that
we shall know good deal more about
this most important subject of fertiliza-
ton before many years haYe passed.
Meantime it behOoves all tillers of the
soil to save with care every scrap of fer
tiliZing material and to compost it for
use when needed for it will certainly be