The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-11-26
worL EXHAUSTION NOT CHIEFLI DUE TO PLANT FOOD SOLD
 UN rRnPS.

IN CROPS.
 we know that the selling of cotton seed year after year results In the lm- poverishment of the soil, and a calcu lation of the amounts thus removed formerly led to the belief that tnis practice was the chief factor in the exhaustion of the fertility of the cotton fields Naturally stress was laid on this obvious factor in tmpoverisnment, while farmers little oreamed that far greater draft on soil fertility was made by the custom of leaving the nelds pare of live plants during the winter sea son when the rainfall is greatest. IL in true that in the case of rich soils, and probably also in the case of falr soils. teaching causes greater loss than does the continued removal or crops This teaching can be largeN prevented by growing during the Win ter any hardy plant whose roots ap- propriate any nitrates formed, which hiRh-prIced plant food would be leached from the soil in the drainage water if there were no growing plant there dur ing the winter.
 How great this and other unsuspect- md iossee may be Is shown by results recorded in a recent bulletin of the Minnesota Experiment Station. me author, Professor Snyder, analysed the soils of fields devoted continuously to
 
 studied the changes in the composition of field on which rotation was prac- tlced the system of cropping including the growing of clover every fourtn or afsA vear for hay. In the twelve years covered by this study the total loss or nitrogen per acre was in the case Of continuous wheat culture (wheat proboo o ably being sown in spring.. z'Vss pounds. Of this loss less than one- fourth was contained in the crops re- moved The absolute loss from leach- ing and other patural processes was 800 pounds of nitrogen, or 125 pounds per year. This annual loss not due to sale of crops Is equal to the nitrogen contained,in about 500 pounds of nitrate of soda. The soil was from one stand point very rich in the beginning, but lost more than one-fifth of It's original nitrogen during twelve years of con- ffnuous wheat culture. The hgures were about the same where oats or barley constituted the continuous crop. However, a system of rotation invelv- ing the use of red clover for hay at intervals of four or i've years, ana the use of eight loads of manure on the corn crop every fourth or fifth year. resulted in maintaining the soil practi- caiIy as rich in nitrogen and humus at the end of twelve years as 1t was at the beRfnnfnE. The wheat crop iTn- Ynediately following the turning under of the red clover stubble was increased five to six bushels per acre and the corn crop moro than twenty bushels per acre. d. F. D' EXPERIMENTS EN BREEDING TO
 INCREASE EGG PRODUCTION.
 The Maine Experiment Station de- votes a considerable portion of it's in- come to experimentation with poultry. one of it's most important experiments along this line consists in the attempt to evolve by selection of race of hens that will far exceH their ancestors in egE production. To dol this. records are kept of the number of eggs laid bv each of about 1000 hens annually. This is possible through the use of the trap nest in which the eggs are laid. A recent bulletin from that station, located at Orono, Me, is of special in- terest to poultry men.
 Starting in 1898 with flock of hens that averaged IA eggs each for the year. the process of selection of the most prolific layers has resulted in raising the average about two dozen sgRs per hen
 The best of the pedigreed hens do stiII better, eighty-two of them having laid from 300 to 251 eggs In one year Eg9s are matched only from those hens whose egg record Is 16O or more per year. No males are used except those whose mothers have laid 200 or more good eggs per year.
 The author found that all pretended methods of selecting the heavy layers by any peculiarity of appearance of the hen failed. However, he found that the bullets which began laying eggs at the earliest date were those which made the largest record for the year. cornmeucIng with the date of the lay ing, of the first egg. A pen of pedi- greed bullets averaged 1S0 eggs in a year. The selection of young bullets was made from those about to begin laying. "As shown by their red combs and their prating and following the care-taker about the fields, talking