The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-04-16
Talks with Farmers
Prof w. F. Massey, in Practical Farmer.
Living and Dead Soils.

Every cultivator of the soil has
doubtless noticed that even a small
broadcast application of barnyard ma
nure shows it's effects for years AFTER
wards, while on the same soil an ap-
pication of commercial fertilizer alone
is mainly used up the first season, and
many jump to the conclusion that the
fertilizers are merely stimulants for
the time being. The manure may
have really less Immediately available
plant food in it than the fertilizer.
What then, makes the difference on a
soil very deficient in humus or decayed
vegetable matter? 1t is simply that
the manure carries with it the vegeta-
BILE material which furnishes food for
the minute microscopic forms of plant
life that are, engaged in the formation
of nitrates from the organic matter
in the soil When a soil is titled year
after year until all the vegetable mat
ter is burned out or oXidized, these
useful bacteria cannot exist and the
soil is really dead soil and is merely
the mechanical retainer of the con-
centrated fertilizers applied, which are
rapidly used up by the crops. and the
soil year after year, under such treat
ment, gets into a worse and worse me-
chanical condition and is literally a
dead soil because life has been starved
out of it. Hence the vital Importance
in the Improvement of any soil of get
ting back into the soil the organic
matter of which it has been robbed,
and which alone will restore it to the
condition of a living soil Astounding in
the useful microscopic life that is not
only furnishing plant food in an avail
able form, but brings about me-
chanical conditions in the soil that
make it more easily cultivated, and
especially more retentive of the moist
lIre that is essential to the solution
of plant food in it. Hence the vebeta-
bic matter in the bedding used in the
stable manure is of vital Importance
in the renovation of the worn soils.
But few farmers make as much of
this as they need, and here comes in
the value of the legume crops in fur
nishing more cheaply the organic mat
ter already spread on the land, chang
ing the dead soil to a living one
through furnishing the food the bac-
terra live upon. But here comes in
another danger. The constant turning
under of the legume crops will GER
tainly furnish the organic matter
which the nitrifying organisms need
but gradually where this is done Of
EN- there comes in an acid nature in
he soil. Then the farmer finds that
ie fails to get a stand of clover for
he microbes that live on the clover
cots and enable the plant to draw
.itrogen from the afr will not thrive
acid conditions in the SOIL Here,
hen, comes in the value of an occa-
ional moderate dressing of lime to
estore the feeble alkalinity of the
oil that the clover requires. The or
anic matter is important for the use
# the bacteria of the soil which carry
IN the work of forming nitrates for
he use of plants, but the nitrogen
altering plants on the roots of the
lover are of a different nature, and
lust have a sweetened soil for their
york, and the occasional use of lime
) therefore important in carrying on
he work of soil improvement, and
nus keeping up the different forms of
bacterial life in the soil. There is a
yidespread notion that the use of acid
hosphate makes the soil sour This
) not due to the acid phosphate itself,
,ut to the way it is used. The con-
inual dependence on commercial fer
ilizers without the restorative legume
rops will certainly tend TO acidity III
he soil But the acidity does not
ONES from the phosphate, but from
he killing out of the bacterial forms
n the death of the oil. Used properly
0 restore the phosphorus in good
hort rotation there is no danger
whatever that the acid phosphate will
ave this effect if an occasional dress
lg of lime is used about once in five
ears The real cause of acidity is in
he absence of bacterial life or the eX-
ess of organic matter that needs the
weetening effect of the lime.