The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1905-09-02
tAkMEk ANDPLANTER
SOIL INDIGESTION.
A simple EXPLANATION That Makes
Plain the Need of Vegetable Mat
ter In the Soil.

The Delaware agricultural expert !
ment station has recently published
Bulletin NO 65, which is unusually |
suggestive to men who are thinking |
about fertility, commercial fertilizers,
and in general about the methods OF
Increasing crop production The title
The meteorological Analysis OF
Soils''-might scare some readers, and
for that reason we have chosen dlr-
ferent heading for our article. we as
sure them that a bacterium singular
for BACTERIAL is something that one
need not be afraid of, and it is we'll
that we should know just how he is
helping US.
The bulletin goes on to state that
fcrty-nine ANALYSIS of the typical soils
of the United States showed as an av-
erage result that they had in the first
eight inches enough nitrogen to last
for ninety crops, enough phosphorus
for 500, and potash for 1000, and yet
these same soils where the chemist has
found so much fertility may under GER
tain condition become so utterly bar
rem of results to the farmer as to lead
him to believe that they are actually
| devoid of plant food.
| The bulletin goes on further to state
that the soil at Rothamsted, England,
which has been cropped with wheat for
fifty years without manure, and which
haS consequently been exhausted, pro-
ducing only eight bushels per acre, still
contained phosphorus, in which 1t was
especially exhausted, to last a hun
dred years to come. We have seen this
Identical piece of land and saw two or
three crops of wheat growing on it.
The reason this plot with a supply OF
phosphorus to last hundred years
had became exhausted was simply be-
cause it was not in shape to be availa-
BILE for the plants.
You say what has this to do with
microbes or bacteria? A very great
deal. The trouble with the Rotham-
sted soil, and the. trouble with nearly
all soc-alled exhausted soils.is not that
they are deficient in the elements sup
piled by commercial fertilizers but be-
cause they are deficient in vegetable
bacteria or microbes to feed on. 1t is
through these that the unavailable
forms of plant food become available.
To quote from the bulletin:
when vegetable or animal matter
is incorporated with the soil it under
goes a process of decay. In this decay
certain products are formed which
react upon the insoluble or unavaila-
BILE forms of plant food in the soil and
render them soluble and available
This latter decay is brought about
through the agency of myriads of BAG
terra present in the SOIL"
Here is an idea which may be quite
new to many of our readers, and We
!, 1t explains a good many things tina
happen ~ their experience. You mus
use vegetable matter in order to max
your mineral matter available L
,, plants; in other words, to allow diges
tion and assimilation to go on. Tn
bacteria of the soil are simply cells
end they do the work quite similar 3
what the cells which line the gland
!. of our own bodies do in the process O
digestion. No matter how much foo
Ne may have in our stomach, or tn
stomachs of our live stock, 1t doe
neither them ror us any good unless
is digested. If our digestion is out c
G order. or if We take something ind
. gestible into our stomachs, We run
the drug store to get patent medicines
If something is the matter with GU
land which We do not understand "
q buy commercial fertilizers. What "
D need in either case is to get our dige:
J. tive system at work regularly withol
: tonics or stimulants,a anu the best toni
: you can give to your land Is vegetabl
8 matter This will start digestion
e work by giving it something to wor
on. and the rest does itself. Man su
fers from indigestion; so does the sol
and the WORKOUT soil is simply OF
' that has bad case of dyspepsia. Gi,
II something for the bacteria to VOL
on. and they will increase and multi
!, ply and digest even the rocky particle
:. thus furnishing available plant foo
Then give it thorough cultivation
as to enable il to prepare food for u
plant, and you have solved the problel
IL Sometimes the soil becomes acid, al
needs an aIkali-in this case lime
= Just as you, reader. may sometimes
troubled with sour stomach and ne
alkaIi. Plenty of good, plain food. w
cooked. and exercise cut of doors W
keep a healthy man from getting 81
r. and will often make sick man we
. Plenty of vegetable matter for bacteI
the digestion cells of the soil-to re
=, upon. and thorough cultivation, W
81 make a sick soil wave with product
al crops.
I. There is a closer relation betwe
man and the soil Than we sometin
>, imagine. Both of the are liable to
!. digestion, and as the man who mas
1a digestion falls away in flesh beca'
~ he is using more force than his $,
~ ~ tenn is supplying him day by day,
~ soil that is troubled with indigestl
u is using up plant food faster than
80 can be made available in the soil, .
.. il. like a dyspeptic man, goes into
"a decline, and is said to be worn out
As do not thing the good Lord intend
} the soils of the Mississippi valley