The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-09-28

same results. We do not mean that
the farmer should cndeavor to improve
his soil by applying more than any par
ticular crop needs. so as to have a resi-
due left in the soil for another crop.
1t may pay at times to even do this,
as, for example leaving something from
the wheat crop to aid the clover. But
the keynote of real farming is to make
crops at the least cost while building
up the produc tiVeness of the soil at the
same time. The applica ton of fertiliz-
ers to every crop grown may show an
apparent profit, but in the long run the
condition of the soil will tell of the eX-
travagance, and the profit will not be
such as could be had through a proper
rotation and the use of only such fer
tilizing materials as our soil may need,
and which we cannot get without an
artificial application. a crop may be
shown to need a certain proportion of
phosphoric acid. nitrogen and potash.
But if we can get the nitrogen by
good rotation with legumes, why buy
1t, when we are at the same time get
ting the most valuable of stock food in
the getting of the nitrogen, and are
thus adding to the humus- making ma
terial on the farm in the manure Why
should We then, buy a complete fer
tiizer merely to get a sale crop, when
We car get the nitrogen and make a
profit in getting it2 Then when we find
that we can in such a rotation get the
use of the potash that is plentiful in
most of our clay soils, through the use
of an occasional dressing of lime, why
should we buy potash? OF course, there
are sandy soils and black muck soils
all over the country which are deficient
III potash, and for these we must buy
it. But on a large part of our upland
clay soils we can get the use of the
abundant supplies of potash existing in
~
ter. You viii never get it by means of
the complete fertilizer applied for the
sole purpose of getting a crop to sell
off the farm.
The fact is that the farmers on some
of our best wheat lands i'm Maryland
have vastly increased the crops Of
wheat while using no fertilizer except
acid phosphate on the wheat crop. An
old friend in Eastern Maryland and
successful farmer, Mr.. Samuel T. Earle
of Queen Anne county, wrote to us
that he has not used anything but acid
phosphate for a number of years, and
that he averages forty bushels of wheat
per acre with intensive culture of the
land. Now in a three year rotation of
corn, wheat and clover. just such
cropping as this practicable. and the
place for the acid phosphate is on the
clover, for If we feed the crop that feeds
the stock and the land at the same
time. and thus increase its power to
get nitrogen from the air. and it's ca
pacity to furnish feed for the stock, the
clover will do all that we need for the
wheat, and in this way the cheap fer
tilizer we buy will tend directly to i'm
provement of the soil and increasing
crops at a smaller cost than the buying
of a complete fertilizer for the purpose,
the cost of which must come out of
the crop. The application of fertilizers
in a lavish way for the production Of
crops has IN attraction to the mex
perienced farmer, who looks at the tenn
porary results only, but the wise farm
er sees through these illusory profits
the exhaustion Of the future, the old
fields, and the poverty stricken farmer
whose gains have gone annually to
this gambling sort of farming. Use
fertilizers, then, with the distinct pur-
pose ahead that through them you
will finally get into a shape where you
will need less of them, and that, on a
clay soil, only phosphoric acid.