Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1900-04-12
The Waste of Fertilizers.

There is probably not another item
on the farm that is wasted like fertil-
izer, both chemical, which is paid for
in good hard cash, and the home made,
which means money if properly cared
for. In the first place, the quint-
essence of the stable manure is lost by
being trodden under foot till it be-
comes heated and hard, OF if it is taken
out daily, is piled in corner of the
bot or under the caves of the shed,
where all the manurial value is drained
out into the earth beneath it, every
time it rains. The urine is lost, which
is one of the strongest elements i'll
the value of stable manure. All OF
these errors could be guarded against
by removing the droppings daily, with
the urine diffused through it, and all
kept under shed, to protect it from
the rain. A grave mistake is made
by hauling it out before the land is
broken in the fall and plowed under
deep.
The winters rain teaches out all the
fertilizer value and leaves substance
with about as much value to the crop
that is to be planted as so much ashes
that have been dripped. I have in
mind farmer who hauled one hun
dred loads of good. carefully prepared
and finely mixed stable manure in
October, plowed it in deep, for cotton,
which he planted the next March.
He was very much disappointed be-
cause the yield was but small per
cent. above the previous year with no
manure. His subsoil was deep and
open, and the strength of his one hum
dred loads had soaked about four or
five inches below where his cotton
roots grew.
have seen men who thought they
were manuring their land when they
were hauling out ton after ton of
lumpy stable and yard "stufr" that
looked like SO many loads of plug to-
bacco, some OF it burned black by its
own heat.
That is picture of. the ordinary
farmer, and he is to be forgiven if he
does not read agricultural journals, or
books written by the leading agricul-
turists of our day. But there is an
other class who pay out good money
for chemical fertilizers, read much, and
should know better, but they scatter
it indiscriminately over the field,
without regard to its chemical con-
tents; the chemical contents of the
soil they feed 1t to, or the chemical
demands of the plant that it is sup
posed to feed. Like the Chinese doc
tor, they give the patient solution
containing all the drugs in their dis
pensary, and trust to one of them
striking and proving an antidote for
the disease.
First, knowing what vegetable you
want soil to grow, find the component
parts of that vegetable; then by an
analysis find if the soil is lacking in
those parts. If so, then your fertil-
izer should contain what the soil is
lacking in and the vegetable to be
grown demands. When you have
done that you have reduced fertilizing
to a science, and will reap the full
benefit of every cent spent, and every
furrow plowed. Until you have re-
duced it to science and mastered the
science, you SOW your time, money,
fertilizer, seed and labor carelessly,
and will reap only partial results,
unless by chance you happen to ''just
strike it right"
Some may ask, "How are we to
know the relative values Of fertilizer
and what our soil is deficient in, or
what each plant demands?"
There are various ways, one of
which is experience. We should
know in one or two two years. culture
what vegetable foods soil is deficient
in by the crops they raise on them.
Then there are the agricultural papers
and books. Last, but not least, near
ly every state has an agricultural ex-
pertinent station, from which books
and pamphlets. giving exhaustive
treatises on the subject, may be had
for the asking. w. F. Adams in
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