The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-11-07
Adapting Mnnurcs to Crops.

That manure is the farmers capital. and
a pile of it the bank where it is deposited,
are truisms that by frequent repetition
have become commonplace, as truths too
often repeated are pretty sure to do. So
far as manure itself is concerned, it is be-
coming each year more difficult to write
anything absolutely new about it, says
the American Cultivator. But that does
not foreclose an infinite variety of new
and profitable discussion about how ma
nure may be best applied, and at what
times and to what crops. This last has re-
ceived altogether much less attention than
ID should The amateur farmer, whose
theoretical knowledge has taught him
only the formula manure literally" is
very likely to find not often that much
of the manure he applies has been vast
ed, but that in many cases it has done
absolute injury to the crops on which il
has been used.
This contradicts what many old-fashon-
ed farmers are in the habit of saying
about stable manure, which in their opin-
ion always does good" as we have often
heard them express It. In the sense that
every application of coarse stable manure
helps to increase soil fertility and thus
benefit future crops, their saying is al
ways true. Stable manure always does
good in this way if in no other. And we
will admit, too that in their practice
farmers do apply both coarse and ferment-
ed manures, so that both the crop and the
soil are generally benefited. In this re-
spect their practice Is far better than
their theory that stable manure must al
ways be a benefit to the crop. If they
would change their practice, which they
know enough not to do, they would easily
perceive their mistake. Suppose, instead
,F ma on anA
corn, they should conclude that their
spring grain crops of oats needed more
manure and should plow in ten to twelve
loads of manure per acre for these. Every
practical farmer knows that this would
prove the worst possible blunder, and
that his spring grain thus MANFRED with
highly heterogeneous manure would rust, or
the soil would be so dried out by it that
the grain crop would be much better If no
manure had been plowed under for it.
In any hoed crop where there is frequent
and thorough surface cultivation, enough
of the spring and summer rains go into
the soil to usually keep it moist until mid
summer, by which time most of the coarse
parts have been rotted down into fine ma
nure, thus developing a large amount of
available nitrogen. This is just what the
growing corn crop wants. 1t is not quite
so good for potatoes, as these will not
bear ury WGatnGT as wei dS COlU Will 10.
But for the small grain crop this extra
supply of nitrogen, IL the season proved
a wet one, will cause the stalk and possi-
bly, even the head of the grain, to rust,
making the grain shrunken and nearly
worthless. Or if the manure is plowed I'M
der and a very dry season follows, the
surface. not being cultivated, does not
keep the manure moist under the furrow,
and this, of course, dries up the soil so
that the crop either way will prove a
failure. Ii Will very likely be both pinch
ed by drought and shrunken with rust.
Where rainfall is very deficient, coarse
manure may sometimes be injurious even
to the corn crop if applied in very large
amounts 1t probably in fermenting,
makes a good breeding place for the spores
of corn rust But unless these spores were
in the manure in the first place. they are
not likely to get into il as to affect the
crop the first season.
Mineral msnures are much better for
small grain than stable manure, either
coarse or fermented. About midsummer
there is even on land that is not cult
waited a large development of nitrogen
from decomposlng organic matter in the
soil. II it were not that grain makes its