The Savannah morning news., 1902-12-29

A field of cowpeas has been very
happily designated 1.-The poor mans
bank for in common with all its le-
guminous congeners, the field pea,
clovers, alfalfa, and score of others,
this crop increases the fertility of the
soil upon which it grows, says a bull
letin of the Department of Agricul-
ture. This fact mas long been accepted
by farmers and students of agriculture,
but until recent discoveries i'm Ger
many and America it was believed that
the chief function of these plants was
to tap the subsoil reservoirs of nitro
gen, bringing this valuable fertilizer to
the surface by means of their long
roots for the use and benefit of sue
ceeding crops
But within the last decade scientific
workers have discovered that minute
micro organisms, or bacteria. which
live within the tissues of the roots of
leguminous plants, take up free nitro
gen from the gases in the soil, just as
the higher plants and animals utilize
the oxygen of the air. This nitrogen
enters into combination to form nitric
acid, which unites with the mineral
elements of the soil to form nitrates,
kind of plant food exceedingly val
liable to the growing crop. Nitrogen,
when in combination with other ele-
ments, is an indispensable form of
plant and animal food. but the free
element can not be utilized, uncnm-
bined, by any of the higher organisms.
Small amounts of nitrous acid are
formed in the air by lightning dis
charges, and are in part absorbed by
the soil and in part carried by rivers
and drainage waters into the sea. Free
nitrogen exists only in the air and in
the gases of the soil, but as ammonia,
nitrous and nitric acid, nitrites and nj
trateS, it is present in varying quanti-
ties in the soil. the unbroken rocks.
and the waters of continents and
oceans.
The most available purchasabe nj
trogen is obtained from nitrate of soda
or from some form of animal wastes,
such as freshly ground bone, dried
blood, guano, tankage, and fish scrap,
and from cotton seed meal and other
like by-products of the oil mills. These
fertilizers are all expensive. so much
so that they can be proftably employ
ed by the farmer only in intensive
farming with specialized crops. The
gain in yield with low-priced crops,
sucn as corn cotton, tobacco. cow
peas, and the grasses, using high
grade and costly fertilizers, is not COM
mensurate with the additional expense.
But every farmer rich and poor, has
| over 5000 tons of atmospheric nitro
gen resting on every acre of his farm
! a certain quantity of which can be
transformed into available plant food
| every time that he grows a crop of
! cowpeas, red clover, or alfalfa.
There are great many acres of
| farming land in the South in need OF
renovation. The red uplands and yell
low-clay soils were undoubtedly less
] l., -ssrfx ..Il,
black prairie soils, and the methods of
cultivation which formerly prevailed
have still further diminished their pro-
| ductiveness. In the days when every
plantation numbered its acres by the
thousand, and labor was cheap the
planter could afford to clear off the
native forest growth and bring fresh
| fields into cultivation whenever the
| yields of cotton and tobacco fell below
what was considered a profitable fig
ure. The old field, stripped in a few
years of its accumulated store of fer
| tility, was abandoned and allowed to
grow up to weeds and underbrush. The
forests again spread across it, and
gradually. in the slow course of half a
lifetime, the natural enrichment of its
surface soil by the growth of the wood
land grasses made it ready for another
cultivation.
But with the breaking up Of the large
estates and the abrupt change in the
labor conditions, this method of farm
ing became no longer profitable or even
possible. A planter with fewer acres
could no longer afford to await nature
slow process of rejuvenating the soil.
new system of farming was neces-
sary. The land must not be allowed to
go back" 1t must be kept up to the
highest state of productiveness by a
\ rotation of crops, a judicious use OF
commercial fertilizers. the growth of
nitrogen-fixing leguminous crops, and
good and thorough cultivation. To
maintain the fertility of any soil the
amount of humus or decaying organic
matter In II must be maintained Take
two soils of as nearly as possible the
same physical and geological formation,
but the one rich in humus and the 9TH
err lacking II, and fertilze them with
equal quantities OF commercial ma
nures; the one which has the most or
ganic matter I'm its composition viii
Yield the larger crop. The soil on that
field Will stand drought better win
wash less under torrential rains. and
be more friahle and Of better tilth The
average soils OF the South need more
humus II can be best supplied by SOW
Ing more grass, more permanent pas
ture lands, more legumnous crops. In
"a word, plant cowpeas.
Peach Diseases.
peach Yelfae.e "a ara 90 tba ,,.-.4