The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-06-27
AGRICULTURAL Chemistry.

All good soils contain within themselves
fertilizing elements sufficient to bring
forth good crops for hundreds of years.
A wise providence has withheld from
man the ability to exhaust land more than
to limited extent.
The farmer can, indeed, so far exhaust
the land as to render it incapable of pro-
ducing crop that will be remunerative;
but, even when such is the case, there is
an amount of latent fertility left sufficient
to sustain the population for ages.
To instruct the farmer how economically
to develop this latent fertility and main
tain it in his land is the aim and object of
agricultural chem istry. 1t is the interest
of the farmer and also of the State to main
tain land in profitable, productive condi-
ton, and yet lands in the old States have
become lessened in fertility to a serious ex-
tent, and in the newer States the same sys-
tenn of exhaustive cultivation is pursued,
and like results will in time follow.
The time is not far distant, If it has not
already arrived, when crops of all suita-
BILE kinds can be grown more probably in'
New England than in the West, and that
emigration from here to wild lands there
should cease.
There are thousands of acres of land to
be had here that the first years crop
would pay for, yet many will go further
west and fare worse.
The widespread maltreatment of land,
must certainly have its origin IN false con-
ceptions of the nse of land, and the i'm
proper management of it flows from that
false conception.
Land properly treated will increase in
fertility and in aptness to bring forth
fruitfully, because the elements of fertility
are being not only gradually developed,
hnt hat Il
Chemical action in soils may unfold the
rich treasures thereof and mechanical
appliances render their effective aid, but if
wrong conceptions of the use of land con-
tinue, all means used to increase it's
fertility will leave it more hopelessly ex-
hausted than before.
Land was given to live on, and whatever
is taken from it as food should be returned
as manure. Land so treated will increase
in fertility, but land continually under the
pillow not only loses the mechanical con-
dition favorable to fruitfulness, but insect
life is thereby greatly increased. Very
minute creatures attack the tender plants
and sometimes crop will nearly be de-
stroyed, while the same kind of plants, the
same season, on land less iniuriously
treated. will yield a remunerative crop.
Let land be properly dealt with, and
chemistry will then come to the aid of
cultivators of the soil, teaching them how
how to hasten the time of ripening, how to
improve the quality of their grain. and to
increase the aroma of fruit, and how to
cause soils now yielding inferior plants to
bring forth superior ones. 1t teaches US
that alkalies give strength and stability to
the stalk, that the phosphates hasten ma
turlty, that lime renders peas more melt
ing, potatoes more mealy, and has changed
rye lands into wheat-gr0wing fields. 1t
will also tell US of the action of carbonic
acid gas on the small particles of rocky
matter in the soil, ana what chemical
changes result from the frequent admission
OF common air into the ground in the
process of cultivation.
There is much land worn out by bad
management and SO located that to bring
it into condition with barnyard manure is
out OF the question, as 1t takes time with
barnyard manure to get lands again into
condition, whereas by the use of artificial
fertilizers land may be made at once to
produce paying crops AS long as farm
has not reached the highest point of cult
walton every means must be pronounced
acceptable which puts the farmer in a posi-
Iion to provide his fields with more liberal
dressing than he is able to give them from
his own supply of home produced, natural
manure. Whoever seeks to arrive quickly
at this state of cultivation must make ex-
tensive use of those auxiliary or artificial
manures that are now offered him by COM
merce.
AS long as these powerful agents for in
creasing the production of land were I'M
known an advantageous rotation of crops
was indeed the only means of insuring a
large yield from the farm, and this leads
slowly, but surely, to the result; now, on
the contrary. it is in the farmers power,
by buying additional manures, to attain
his object with greater rapidity.
The more extended employment of arti-
fetal manures is an advance in farming
that has already opened new era. By
this means the business of farmer is be-
coming more closely Appropriated than
formerly to that of manufacturer.
For while formerly our farming arrange
ments were conducted in the manner
which the quality of manure produced on
the farm itself prescribed we are now free
to cultivate, as may seem most profitable,
every plant which is suited to the soil.
Yes, still more, we can produce, as it
were, with a single effort, fine harvests
from worn-out and poorly MANFRED land
We can, in such case, secure in two or