Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1904-01-12
STALKS AS FERTILIZER.
Great rlistake is fiade in Selling
Tobacco Stalks.

1t Is strange that farmers should
spend life time in the culture OF
Tobacco, taking out a scauty liv-
ing caring for the leaf, and never
learn the value Of the stalk as plant
and vegetable food, fed back to the
land, but such is true.
The Tobacco stalk is the rarest
plant food Regarded as waste) that
is known TO the Tobacco farm and
yet seldom utilized to any good
purpose. The farmer has no more
right to throw away, burn or dis.
pose of his Tobacco stalks than he
has to treat likewise his barn yard
or stable manure. Tobacco stalks
certainly belong TO the farm where
grown, just as other manure, and
no planter can haul them away, or
suffer his renter or cropper to do so
without impoverishing his land that
much, and advertising himself as a
poor farmer There is a time in
every farmer life, as in every bus
lnessman 5 career, when he needs
accumulation, a loan to tide over an
emergency, and if he is known as
a practical, prosperous husband
man, he finds no trouble in obtain
ing money from his banker or a
forehanded neighbor, and the farm
er who is without this credit owes
it all to himself, for his manage
ment is closely observed by neigh.
bors as by business men.
According to the authority of ex-
pert chemists of various State ex-
PerImental stations, ton of Tobias
co stalks shows an analysis which
placed the fertilizing properties of
the stalk at So. so to $17O0 in com.
parison to the prices of commercial
or mineral fertilizers, and yet many
farmers think it nice little pick
up when they can pack half ton
of stalks on a wagon and spend
day marketing the load for $500
or $500, and then pay three or four
times as much for half ton of min
eral fertilizer to raise another crop
of Tobacco, when the plant food is
the thing needed to produce quality.
This kind of thing makes Jordan
hard road for the farmer TO travel,
and yet how many thoughtlessly
travel it.
Not long since Secretary Wilson,
OF the National Agricultural Blu
reau, passed through the Tobacco
sections lecturing and teaching the
people the character of soil best
adapted for Tobacco growing, the
plant food essential to keep the
land open and airy, invigorated by
the electric current natural to the
plant, make the soil produce 1000
to 1880 pounds of rich, heavy To-
bacco per acre, instead of 900 to 900
pounds of common stuff, made by
force or over-stimulation from the
use of costly mineral fertilizers, and,
following this, reap Is or 30 bushels
OF wheat per acre, or, better still,
20 bushels of barley. How many
farmers have prohted from these
valuable lectures and writing from
the Bureau, facts ascertaIned and
demonstrated by costly expert
ments? Few, indeed, and yet they
go on stripping the farm of it's plant
food, impoverishing the soil, produc.
ing common Tobacco at low prices.
Why not organize farmers clubs
and discuss these very important
questions in connection with the
labor system, and find better way.
However, no intelligent farmer
should suffer himself to be caught
hauling off his Tobacco stalks to
a cheap market, when they are
worth so much to his land West
ern Tobacco Journal.