The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-08-17
Farming without Commercial Fer
tiIizer.

The editor of the Practical Farmer
reviewing a discussion of the question
saws:
THE question is: Can farming be
successfully done in the South without
the use of commercial fertilizers? This
will, of course, depend on what part of
the South is taken into consideration
On the virgin soils of Texas the ques-
ton is easily answered in the affirma-
tive, and there are other parts of the
South, as in the fertile delta of the
YaZoo and other streams where the soil
seems of inexhauStible fertility. But
the question applies more to the worn
and wasted cotton lands of the South,
and to the lighter sandy soils of these
parts of the country. On the red clay
uplands of Upper Georgia and the Up
per South in general it is certainly pos
sible to farm and improve the lands
without the use of commercial fertili-
zers. AS we have time and again said,
a soil of good mechanical composition
like these red lands may become I'M
productive through bad treatment. but
it can never be really worn out. 1t
may be deficient in readily availabl
plant food, but proper tillage and plow-
ing and the use of recuperative crops
to restore the humus. with the feeding
on the land of legume crops and corn
will certainly restore the land to its
pristine fertility without the aid of
commercial fertilizers. But the posi-
bility of so doing is not exactly the
question. Good farming is that which
gives the best immediate results while
building UP the soil to greater produc-
tiVeness, and the good farmer will al
ways avail himself of the best means at
hand for aiding in the rapid improve
ment of his crops and the permanent
development of the productive capacity
OF his land. Commercial fertilizers
rightly used, can be made the most eff
ficient instruments in this improvement
that the farmer can apply. The whole
trouble with commercial fertilizers in
the South arises from the fact that they
have not been properly used. Used as
they have been in the past the RESULT
is seen all over the South in wasted and
abandoned old fields from which the
little dribble of fertilizers in the row
has enabled the farmer to rob the land
OF the last available vestige of produce
tiveness. Fertilizers have been used in
small amounts merely to force from
the soil year after year a little more
cotton and cottonseed to sell, and the
scratch blowing has aided this impov-
erishment, while all the while right be-
low the scratch of the little one-mule
waiting for someone with knowledge
and pluck enough to break into it and
reap large harvests. In the restoration
of these lands there is nothing that viii
more profitably help the improving
farmer than artificial fertilizers. 1t is
possible with the commercial fertilizers
and the legumes to bring up the land TO
great productiveness in cotton and 9TH
er crops, even without live stock. But
it is far more profitable to feed live
stock and save the manure in connec-
ton with the use of commercial fertili-
zers. EXperimentally, we have brought
up this red clay soil to great produc-
tiveness with no commercial fertilizers
in fourteen years past. but we could
have done 1t more rapidly and profita-
bly, by using them in the proper place
With the exception of tobacco and the
market garden crops we do not think
that on a properly conducted farm there
should ever be any need for the pur-
chase Of any complete fertilizer; that
is. one in which the costly nitrogen IS
a part. With the ordinary farm crops
of corn. oats, wheat and cotton we
know that the best and most profitable
crops can be grown on the red lands
with acid phosphate alone and on the