The age-herald., 1898-03-29
SOIL sPOLIArIoN AND CLOVER

SOIL SPULIATION AND CLOVER From the Southern Magazine
 In series of letters addressed to the King of Bavaria many years ago, Baron Von Liebig sought to demonstrate the truth that the amount of produce yielded by field corresponds with or is proportions ate to the quantity of plant food in the soil minus the sum of the resisting forces which hinder the production of the crop from the elements of food present. All plants, with out exception, deprive the soil of some power of production, each in its own way, but all surely and constantly if removed from the soil.
 The value of clover arises in large meas ure from two causes, one that it's long roots, reaching far down into the subsoil, bring up elements of fertility to the surface where 1t may be appropriated by the grow ing crops; the other is that clover has the power of extracting nitrogen from the at mosphere Clover Is sown not so much for hay as for pasturage and for the pur- pose of improving the land. If the entire crop of clover was annually removed from the soil it would quickly appear that clover, as well as corn, would prove exhaustive to the soil For a few years, until the roots had robbed the subsoi of its fertilizlne ingredients, there would be no perceptible decline but rather increase in powers of production; but unless this subsoil Is largely composed of dssolving rocks con- taining mineral fertilizing material in un- limited quantity clover sickness would eventually ensue and the soil would be weakened as much as though successive crops of corn wheat had been taken or. The inevitable result would be the same; the soil would lose it's fertility. There ex- ists no plant that husbands the resources of the soil and none that can possibly add any fertilizng mineral to 1t except drawing plant food from the atmosphere. Plants may and do prepare the soil so as to ln- crease it's productive capacity, and in do- ing so may be said to enrich it. just as the mill may prepare the flour and the baker the bread so as to be assimilated by the hu- man stomach The object, for instance, in sowing clover is one of preparation and amelioration. We SOW clover because 1t unlocks, so to speak, the mineral fertilizers that are not assimilable until made so by this crop because it's mechanical effects are such as to prepare the soil in the best possible manner for the growth of crops; because it gives the land drainage by its deep roots and so makes 1t warmer and lighter; because 1t collects potash. phos- phoric acid and lime from the earth and nitrogen from the air and brings them to the surface where the crops may feed upon them. But after all this is said, and the food which exists in the soil is pre- pared daintily for the appetites of the growing crops it replaces none of the min eral ingredients which are carried away when crops are sold. All experience goes to show that land constantly rotated with clover for a term of years will begin to show evidences of impoverishment which ir poverishmt mt must be healed by the ap- plication of manures. either barnyard or commercial A top-dress.ng of the sul- phate of lime, for instance, will often double the crop of clover, and it would be the height of folly to teach that lands without an inexhaustible supply of mineral fertilizers can be kept in good heart by the use of clover alone or by any other green crop.
 The constituents of the soil, says Baron Liebig, are the farmers capital the ele- ments of food supplied by the atmosphere the interest of the capital; by means of the former he produces the latter. In selling the produce of his farm he alienates a portion of his capital and his interest. In returning to the land the soil constituents removed in the crops he simply restores his capital to his field.
 Any other system of farming leads to ultimate poverty. The land does not con- stitute the farmers wealth, but it is the plant food contained in the land. The only system of rational agriculture is based upon one ,yord restitution-restitution of what is removed by the sale of successive crops. Any other system is one of spolia- tion of destruction to the soil and of pow erty to the country. Clover is servant that collects what may be in the soil and prepares it for the growing crops, but 1t does not add one iota to the mineral fertil- izers, and unless, as has been said before, these are practically inexhaustible in the soil there must come a time when. from exhaustion the soil must fail even to pro- duce clover.
 The mistaken belief that a rotation of clover with other crops will keep up the fertility of the soil permanently arises from the fact that on many of the soils of this country there are underlying rocks which give up their mineral fertilizers year after year through the benign agency of clover, but time will exhaust even these.
 What Is desired to be emphasized In this article is that there can be no substitute for manurial applications; that there must be positive restitution to the soil of what the soil has been robbed; that every crop and all plants will ultimately, if removed, exhaust the soil, and that consequently the first principle of successful agriculture lies in the manure pile and there can be no substitution for it. The experience of English farmers shows that clover alone I will fail to keep up the fertility of the soil When first introduced into Germany in the beginning of the eighteenth century, it was hailed with acclamations all over the empire, and Schubert, who introduced it. was created Knight of the Clover-field. It was thought to have the power of keep ing up the productiveness of the land per- petually, but after time clover failed to bestow Its former gifts, and the very fields which 1t once seemed to favor be- came powerless to produce 1t.