The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1901-11-16
FARMERAND PLANTER.
LEGUME SOIL IMPROvERS.
The Farmer who HabitunIIy Grows
LeEuminOus Crops Will Not
Have a Rundown Farm

lIEtC N
In all countries and on all lands
where the principal croo is grain. hay
or fiber, which is sold away from the
farm, the land. after a few years, or
maybe a generation, fails to produce
as good crops as formerly. Eventually
it becomes Improbable to grow
these crops. The farmers become inn
poverished. Country homes lack COM
fort and all the miseries of a decay
ing industry are felt. In regions
where the growth of the soil is fed
on the farm to dairy or other ami
mails, the wealth and average comfort
of the farmer is greater than in
grain or fiber growing districts, be-
cause where animals and their prod
ucts alone are sold off the farm
comparatively little soil fertility is
taken away, and this is, as a rule,
more than made good by the food
stuHs bought for feeding.
The fertility of even the strongest
soil is not inexhaustible. 1t is similar
to a bank account, and, like that,
/ SOOntI VI ldltI tAlauotNus NV In
account shows all outgo ard no in
come.
The essential elements OF plant food
are only three-nitrogen, phosphoric
acid and potash. The first is the n
of most Importance, the most eNpen-
sive to buy and most difficult to hold.
No soils contain more than a very lit
4 r -. - II - ,,l1x
the first element of plant food TO be-
come exhausted. Yet every acre CT
land upon the earth's surface has
resting upon it no less than $4,000
tons of nitrogen. Four-ffths of the
air we breathe is nitrogen. Unfortu-
nately no agricultural plant or ami
NAL is able to feed directly upon the
store of nitrogen in the air. Legu-
minous plants are able to feed upon at
mospheric nitrogen indirectly through
microscopic bacteria, which grow up
on and eat the roots of this class of
plants. These bacteria do not grow
upon the roots of non-leguminous
plants. For example, one ton of tim
othy hay takes from the soil the fol-
lONlhB Dltut lOpus NItioSNh ~c'~
pounds, phosphoric acid 1916 pounds,
potash IS pounds. One ton, or 80
bushels of wheat (grain) takes from
the soil: Nitrogen 56.2 pounds, phos-
phoric acid IA pounds, potash 1879
pounds. One ton of red clover hay
takes from the air: Nitrogen Ala
pounds, and from the soil, phosphoric
acid &c pounds, potash "A pounds. One
ton of cowpea hay takes from the air:
Nitrogen 80 pounds, and from the soil,
prosphoric acid 1914 pounds, potash
29.4 pounds. If we grow timothy hay
and feed it to stock on the farm and
carefully return the manure to the
meadow, we return from onc-half to
four-fifths of the plant food taken
up in the crop; but if the crop is sold
away, the nitrogen in the soil is soon
exhausted and timothy dies out. II
we grow clover instead Of timothy
we take only phosphoric acid ant
potash from the soil. If we feed the
clover and return the manure, we i'm
prove the soil instead of impoverish
ing it. This is why legumines are
called soil improvers. But without {
yearly dressing of phosphate and pot
ash,our clover itself will in the cuurs,
of a few years III out, in spite O.
the stable manure we give it. Ugl,
and worthless weeds of the dock ant
pigweed kinds come in. This presenc,
of these weeds shows that the sol
} contains plenty of nitrogen, but lack
! phosphoric acid and potash. Stab,
manure contains very little of thes,
) latter substances. It's value depend
, almost wholly upon it's nitrogen an,
the vegetable matter which, by de
cay in the soil, forms humus.
. The farmer who grows only legu
mines-that is, peas, beans, cowpea
clovers, vetch, alfalfa, etc.-can gro,
these crops indefinitely and sell then
: or feed them, as he finds it mos
:. profitable to do, will never exhaust hi
y farm, provided he returns each yea
: potash and phosphoric acid equal t
!. that sent away in the crop. Thes
a substances are cheap, costin
a about four cents per pound in for1
of muriate of potash and superpho.
:. phate. Nitrogen costs about sixtee
cents per pound in nitrate of sod;
At the present prices of staple crop
10 farmer can afford to buy nitroge
A at any price so long as he can dra,
a it from the air by setting leguminou
~ plants and their microbes as trap
n Harness the nitrogen collecting m
crobe to your pillow, and as Poor Ricl
"a ard says:
"Plow deep while sluggards sleep
r. And you will have corn to sell an
II keep
It Gerald Mccarthy, in Farm an
W Ranch.
III