The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1901-05-11
FARMER AND PLANTER.
INCREASING FERTILITY.
The Farmers who Have Been Ruth
lessly DespOjling the Soil Must
Give Something Back.

Take nothing from nothing and
nothing remains. Now, take some
thing from nothing, and if it were =
possibility, you would have still less.
For the past so To 100 years the
farmers of this country have been
ruthlessly despoiling the soil of its
virgin freshness until its fertility is
exhausted, its productive capacity
lessened or totally destroyed, and yet
the remedy for this condition of
things proposed is-what? To simply
sow the land down to clover or cow
peas, as If clover or COW peas could
remedy the wrong that has been per-
petrated for so or 100 years of taxi
ing everything possible off the land
ard never putting anything back.
Clover furnishes what? Nitrogen.
Cow peas furnish what? Nitrogen.
Where is phosphoric acid and potash
that has been removed in so to 100
years of continued cultivation to come
from? How is il to be restored? Can
il like nitrogen, be gotten from the
atmosphere? Not at all. If restored
at all, it must be restored by artiti-
cial means-by the hand of man. As
phospboric acid and potash are just
as important and just as inevitably
good and profitable in the making Of
good and profitable crop as is nj
trogen, where is the business sense,
the business acumen, the good judg-
ment in depending upon something
that furnishes nitrogen alone? We
leave it with our clover-stricken or
pea-stricken friends TO decide.
For several years past we have beer,
running an experimental farm of our
own. We have been running it for
what actual practical information,
as well as profit, we could get out Of
it. Among other things we have
learned by so doing is. that one-sid-
ed fertilization don't pay. In order
to raise maximum crops year after
year, and still, as is the object of
every good farmer, to leave the land
better than he found it; or, in other
words, to increase instead of decreas-
ing the fertility and consequent pro-
dnctive capacity of the soil. it is abso-
lutely essential: First. that more in
stead of less is annually added to the
soil than is taken from it; and, seq
ond, that due proportion a prop
er balance" or as nearly as posi-
BILE practicable in the way of per-
feet equilibrium of the three leading
elements of fertility, to-wit-nitro-
gen, pnosphoric acid and potash De
maintained. This, and nothing short
of this, will bring about maximum
or profitable crops year by year. Nj
trogen by itself is not complete fer
tilizer, and never will be. Phosphorus
acid by itself is not Il complete fer
tilizer, and never will be. Potash it,
self, although truly remarkable re-
suits have been Obtained by its use
alone is not a complete fertilizer, and
never will be. No, but by judicious
combination of these three leading
elements, and by their liberal tnot
prodigal) use, five bales of cotton
have been made to the acre; 225 BUSH
els of corn have been made to the
acre; 500 bushels OF sweet potatoes
and upwards of 200 bushels of Irish
potatoes have been made to the acre:
500 gallons of sirup; six tons of hay
and IS bushels: of wheat have been
made TO the acre. What has been done
can be done again. How? Is it by TAX
ing everything off the land, or is it
by adding something to the land?
There are no halfway measures in
this case. 1t is that which is taken
from the land that makes it poorer,
and conversely. 1t is that which is
added to land that makes it richer.
Every farmer can readily call to mind
instances where poor acres have been
enriched. but with the single excep-
tion of the means of enrichment be-
ing purchased, in the shape of cattle
feeds, manure or chemical fertilizers,
hence, brought it from abroad the
enrichment of Hose same acres Wis
brought about b\ Che impoverishment
of other less-fa. red acres. 1t is sim.
ply .'borrowink from Peter to pay
Paul" The planting of ieguminons
crops is the very essence of good farmss
ing. BY means Of them every farmer:
can raise his own needed supply Of
nitrogen and keep up his supply of
humus. but here as agents to be used
in the maintenance or increase of
fertility, their usefulness ends. They
do not, and can not, supply the pot
ash and phosphorus acid that are
equally essential and equally indis-
pensable with the much-vaunted nj
trogcn in the production of profitable
crops. A well-balanced fertility can
not be brought about by leguminous
crops alone. A judicious rotation of
crops is also absolutely indispensa-
BILE to good farming; but, like the