The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-04-02
Farm Miscellany.
CORN FERTILIZERS.

from which the following In refer
ence to fertilizers for the crop is an
extract:
When for any reason the land can
not be made fertile by the growing
of legumes, barnyard manure is next
in quality as furnishing the neces-
sary humus and nitrogen, though it
should ordinarily be supplemented
with potash and phOsphOric acid.
Barnyard manure varies so widely
in composition that no exact value
can be assigned to it, nor can any
definite rule be made as to the
amounts which should be used on
different soils. Ordinarily it's great
est value is in its humus making
capacity, and this is especially true
in the South, where it is seldom kept
under cover and where the soluble
potash and phosphoric acid are
largely leached out and the nitrogen
lost in the air before the Is
spread on the land. This loss of fer
tilizing elements can be largely
avoided by hauling the manure to the
field as fast as it is made, but it Is not
always practicable. If barnyaTd ma
nure alone is used as fertilizer there
is little danger that the application
Will be too heavy. Ordinarily it is
better to apply it broadcast before
p'Owing, and it is better to give u
part of the field u heavy dress every
few years than to make a very light
application over the whole field
every year. If the manure is fresh
and coarse, full of corn stalks, straw
and other rubbish, it should be used
on clay rather than on sandy soils,
while if fine and we'll rOtted it will
be more effective on the lighter soils.
Less than twenty wagOn-lOadS per
acre will not often produce marked
results, and if fifty loads per acre
are available they can be used with
profit. The manure will be much more
effective if from 100 TO 200 pounds
per acre of acid phosphate is mixed
with it, when it is hauled to the
field, and, at planting, the same
v eight of kainit or one fourth as
much muriate of potash should be
used under the seed.
When neither green manuring nor
burnyurd II is available, cotton
seed, cotton seed meal, potash salts
and phosphates must be used, the
quantities and proportions varying
with the character Of the soil. The
necessary supply Of nitrogen can be
secured most economically from
either cotton seed or cotton sect
meal, the former being better for
heavy, clay soils, while the latter is
more effective on light, sandy lands.
Nominally one pound of the meui
has Il terJIllzlng value equal to that
OF two and one half pounds of seed,
but their relative effects may vary
widely from those proportions. The
seed furnishes u much larger amount
of humus than does meal containing
an equal amount of plant food, and
so is more effective on soils that
have not recently been fertilized
with vegetable matter. The whole
seed makes Il heavy soil lighter,
loOser and more easily worked, while
meal has the contrary effect. The
whole seed is more lasting in its
effects than is meal, a considerable
part of it not being exhausted before
the end CT the second season.
The common practice of wetting
the seed and allowing it to heat suf-
ficiently to kill the germ before
using 1t is wholly unnecessary when
it is used as u fertilizer for corn, as
it is used so early in the season that
nearly all OF it will be killed in the
ground, and even if Il few seeds
should terminate, the young plants
Will be killed by the first cultivation
and will decay so quickly that moth
ing will be lost. When whole seed
is used, from twenty five to fifty
bushels per acre is IL tair application.
Cotton seed meal is better than the
whole seed for use on light soils. 1t
makes such soils more compact, and
thus less easily affected by drought,
which Is often an important item on
the soils of the pine woods and the
Cult region. 1t decays and becomes
available for plant food very quickly,
and nearly all of It's fertilizing value
will have become exhausted by the
end of the growing season. From