The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-05-14
[coNoLupEp FROM PAGE L.

elements, but they have lain so long
in one position that the combining
numbers have long since been used
up, and therefore, changes have
largely ceased to take place, and
have become dormant and unsuited
TO the plants needs. ~Subsoiling
brings together particles which be-
fore, were remote from one another,
thus furnishing combining numbers
and consequent changes, and hence
most satisfactory results, There is
an inexhaustible supply down below
the soil provided you go deep enough
80 get it.
But don't expect the best results
from one or two subsoilings these
changes are slow, and the combining
numbers furnished by n deep plow-
ing are soon used up, and each sub
sequent subsoiling produces more,
and thus the good work is extended.
Air, heat, light and moisture r
among our best agencies for disinte-
grating the soil and producing com
bining numbers and as stirring the
soil and the subsoil lets in these,
the oftener and deeper the better.
But the larger part of it must be
done before planting, since to pillow
deep amongst growing crops breaks
the roots and thereby cripples the
plants chances OF taking up the
food thus prepared.
Some seem astonished at learning
that a certain plant requires the ap-
plication of more of one ingredient
and less of another than is actually
taken up by said plant for instance,
less ammonia and more phosphOric
acid or potash but such phenomena
r explained in the fact that these
ingredients T not taken up as such,
but are used in connection with the
natural soil contents to produce food
in such form as the plant must have
it. And while over a given terri
tory in which the soil contents do
not vary greatly, and over which
the same moisture and atmospheric
conditions prevail, a certain formula
has given the same results over a
period of several years Gas was the
case in Prof. Redding's experiments
in the State of G~eorgia), this will
not hold true in a section where the
soil contents and moisture and at
mospheric conditions differ widely.
On the writer's sandy farm in Samp-
SON county, N. c., the formula must
be revised, and more ammonia and
potash than phosphoric acid, or at
any rate, much larger proportions of
these and less of phOsphOric acid
must be used, while Prof. Redding
used more phosphate and but little
of the other two, which proves that
the soil content is so different, which
coupled with the difference in moist
ure and atmospheric conditions that
entirely different proportions must
be used to furnish the requisite COM
bining numbers. Hence, here, the
same plant which, in Georgia, took
ND more ammonia and less phos-
phorfc acid than was applied, actually
or nearly reverses the case, and
takes up more, or quite as much,
phosphate as was applied, and less
or about the same ammonia and pot
ash.
There is a Natural Laboratory in
the earth, and there are constant
changes going on, both synthesis
and analysis, building up and tear
ing down. Many elements entering
into a compound under favorable
conditions, possess greater affinity
for some other element, and as o o
as conditions are favorable this
affinity ''plays," and a sezeme is
made which breaks up former com
bining numbers, and new compounds
are thus formed while others are
broken up. Such results are ac-
complished by shifting the position
of soil particles by deep and fire.
quent plOwings.
1t is a we'll known fact that while
all plants are fed from the products
of these few elements, (about Il in
alb, they differ in their require
ments, some requiring one form and
some another and since many diff
ferent kinds of plants must be grown
on the same soil from time to time,
and even. often at the same time, it
is easy to see the wisdom of the
Creator in thus providing a system