The Savannah morning news., 1904-08-15
To Keep Tobacco Land in Condition

/
The growing of tobacco is supposed
to greatly exhaust the land This is
doubtless true; but it is comforting
to know that the element that it
takes out in greatest quantities is
potassium and that this is quite easily
! restored to the soil, says the Farm
er's Review. Not only so, but in many
of our soils there is an abundance of
potassium in the subsoil Not infre-
quently this supply of potassium lies
just below the top of the water table
and has been retained there by rea-
son of the presence of the water, the
roots of the tobacco not having been
able to draw on the supplies. The
drainage of this land brings this great
supply of potassium into use, and fire.
quenty the quantity so rendered use
full is enough to supply the plants
for a score of years.
Where potassium is on the point of
becoming deficient in any land it will
certainly pay to add to the soil from
season to season the same amount of
that element as is taken off in each
tobacco crop. An analysis of tobacco
shows that the ash contains over 20
per cent. of potash and over 25 per
cent. of lime, these two making up
over one-half of the ash. AS the ash
is over % per cent. of the whole body
of the plant, the amount of potash in
the dried leaf is about per cent.
OF course the application of barn
yard manure in large quantities re-
suits in keeping up the fertility of
the soil but this has not been done on
large areas of land in the West where
tobacco has been extensively grown.
The lands have already begun to show
the deficiency, and this deficiency all
ways reduces the size of the crops
No matter how much nitrogen there
may be in the soil, and no matter how
abundant the phosphorus may be- if
the potassium is not in sufficient
quantities the crop cannot be a max
imum one. This is one of the rules
of crop growing. The element that
is present in least quantity determines
the size of the crop
In the North we have had to deal
little with this question, because to-
bacco was not formerly grown in large
quantities here. The tobacco plant
was supposed to be a plant that be-
longed to the sub-tropical region. It
took some time for men to learn that
the plant could be grown as far north
as Wisconsin. Now large areas in
that state are being used in the Gull
ture of tobacco, and 1t has been found
to be a profitable crop to grow
We doubt, however, If the applca-
ton of stable manure can for many
years keep up the potassium supply
in the soil, where large crops of to-
bacco are annually harvested. Com
mon barnyard manure does not con-
tain large amount of potassium, just
as most farm plants that are used
for animal feeding are less rich in
potassium than is tobacco. If potato
tops, tomato vines and tobacco leaves
were disable for feed we might ex-
pect to find the potassium in the pile
of farmyard manure equal to the
amount being taken out of the soil
by the tobacco plant, 1t is evident.
however. that manure is composed
chiefly of the hay and straw the ami
mails have received, and the growing
of tobacco thus takes out of the soil
a larger amount of this element than
can possibly get back into it, unless
the amount of barnyard manure an
nually applied per acre is exceedingly
large.
Fortunately potassium in its com
mercial forms is abundant and fairly
cheap 1t should be purchased i'm its
purest form, which will also cost the
most per ton. Potassium chloride at
$50 per ton may seem like an expen-
sive fertilizer, but it is the cheapest
form IN which it can be obtained
Many men buy cheap forms of the
fertilizer, which really carry with them
three times as much useless material
as does the purest form. In that case
the buyer has to pay freight on three
times as much waste as he would in
the purchase of the purest form. He
pays freight on this not only from
some point in the United States, but
from the potassium mines in Ger