The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-07-28
CHURCH AND FARM U
saa--'---- WORN OUT LANDS.

Slowly but gradually and surely we
are getting hold of the correct prin-
ciples relating to agriculture. Ii was
a long time before it was discovered
that all soils contained am inexhausti-
BILE supply of all the elements that enter
into the structure of the plant except
three or four. These are potash, phos-
phoric acid, nitrogen, and in some SOILS
lime The conclusion was, therefore,
reached that the soil would be all
right if the lacking ingredients were
supplied in the shape Of commercial
fertilizer. In the process of this in
veslfgation it was found that it was
not the absolute supply Of these ele-
ments in the soil that was important
but the supply of them in an available
form 1t was discovered that the chem
ist could find these elements in the soil
in a form that the plant could not
utilize and that some plants, for In
stance clover, could get hold of them in
the soil when other plants could not.
1t was common experience chat when
soils were new and fresh they gave
abundant crops but when corn after
corn, or wheat after wheat, or oats
after oats, or fax after flax was grown
soil exhaustion became very apparent.
L
ed but it was found that growing grain
after grain practically exhausted the
land SO far at least as paying crops are
concerned. Sir John 3. LaweS, how
ever, has demonstrated that 1t is i'm
possible to completely exhaust these
elements in the soil. He has grown
wheat after wheat without manure for
fifty years and we saw in 1894 a crop of
wheat growing on cheese two plots that
would have satisfied any average Iowa
farmer. Nature has firm grip on the
elements of fertility and will not al
low man TO rob the soil completely.
Soils become exhausted through con-
tinuous grain cropping down to GER
tain point and then it does not seem
possible to exhaust them further. This
point is of course below the cost of
profitable agriculture.
Some years ago Helreigel and Will
farth demonstrated that by the use of
The legumes the supply of nitrogen
could be increased to almost any de-
sired extent and that wherever the
clovers, alfalfa, beans or peas of any
variety can be grown there is no need
of soil exhaustion so far as nitrogen is
concerned. It is now beginning, how
ever, to creep into the heads of the
scientists thRt the restorative powers
of the legufnes is due not merely to the
supply of nitrogen but to the reStora-
ton of humus to the soil, and investi
cations are now proceeding in that line
which promise 20 be exceedingly in
teresting. BY hunlus we mean the
vegetable mold which exists to a
greater or less extent in all soils but
is more abundant i'm all new soils,
whether forest or prairie. 1t has been
observed by the common, every day
former who pretends to no knowledge
of science soils decline in fertility in
proportion as this vegetable mold is ex-
hausted. 1t is exhausted quite rapidly
not merely by the removal of crops but
by chemical action which is the result
of cultivation
hence the soil that seems to be rich in
vegetable matter turns out in few
years to be a clay bed which produces
little or nothing. The Minnesota agri-
cultural experiment station has been
taking a prominent part in these inves-
LEGATIONS and has found that when
fertilizer containing nitrogen, potash
and phosDhoric acid or any one of
these materials, mas been applied, either
altogether or alone there was in no
case an increase of over three bushels
of wheat or two bushels of fax per
acre, and on moderately new soils, and
that where soils had been cropped for
| twenty years the largest increase was
four bushels per acre while the decline
between these soils in their best condi-
ton and worn out condition was fiji
teen bushels per acre. 1t is therefore
clear from this and other results that
the decline in soil fertility is not due
merely to the removal of the elements
essential to fertility but to some other
cause. That cause is to a very great
extent the lack of humus or vegetable
matter, and it IS quite probable that the
results of clovering, which in our ex-
perience adds from fifteen to twenty
/ five bushels of corn per acre to worn
out soil. is not due merely to the nj
trogen stored in the soil but to the
material from which humus is made
in the form of the roots of the clover.
| This accounts also for the lasting eff
fects of barnyard manure which con-
tains not merely these essential ele-
nnents OF fertility but adds humus to
the soil.-Wallace's Farmer
BiIlson-I know where you can find re-