St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1907-11-30
COMMERCIAL FERTILIZER,
BY Its Judicious Use the Soil May Be
Greatly Improved.

Greatly Improved.
Possibly there is no other one thing
that the farmer invests as much
money in as commercial fertilizer with
as little understanding Of it's value,
or what he is likely to receive in re-
turn for his investment. The farmer
realizes that something is needed to
make his soil grow better crops.
Fertilizer is recommended to do this,
but in order to buy and apply COM
mercial fertilizer intelligently there
must be more study and experiment.
ing than the average farmer cares to
give the subject and he naturally drops
into the habit of relying upon the
agent to select the fertilizer or else
he judges the quality by the brand
of the goods. If it is new brand he
judges by the smell. The sense Of
smell is very good thing, but it was
never intended for the purpose of ana
lying commercial fertilizer It is often
the case that the agent has given the
subject of commercial fertilizers very
little study from farmers standpoint
and of course is not capable Of select
ing goods for the farmer.
He does not know which brands Of
goods yield the best profits to him
when he sells them, however, and it
is to his interest to sell the goods
which yield the most profit from the
sale. The farmer must look to increase
of crops for his profit, while the profit
which the agent gets is calculated az
a certain per cent on the cost of the
goods. Then the farmer is liable to
drop into another error, it is natural
to calculate that if an application of
200 pounds of fortified per acre will
secure certain increase of crop, that
double the application per acre will
double the increase of crop. This is
calculation that seldom works out cor
rectly in practice. 1t looks all right
at first though, but there are so many
considerations in the use Of fertilizer
| that it is an error that deceiVes many.
Commercial fertilizer is in a sense
a land stimulant; of course it adds
| plant food, but it also helps the plants
1t will help to get set of grass on
| the land and also increase the yield
of crops, but if the fertilizer is de-
| pended upon to grow the crop from
year to year it will soon induce con-
ditions in the soil that will leave it in
q worse condition than it was before
| the fertilizer was used. By the mod
| crate use of commercial fertilizer in
| a judicious rotation the soil may be
| improved from year to year. have
field that has had light applications
| of commercial fertilizer applied two
years in four, and it is gradually COM
ing us so that now it yields double
the crops per year that it did ten years
ago. The rotation practiced is corn
followed with wheat, the wheat fol-
lowed with buckwheat after wheat
harvest and timothy and clover soWn
with the buckwheat; then it is left
in meadow for two years, then the sod
is turned and the land goes to corn
again.
The stable manure is applied to the
sod and turned under for corn, SO
that the wheat and buckwheat both
receive an application of superphos'
phate and the corn receives an appli'
cation of stable manure, making tw"
applications of commercial fertilizer
and one application of stable manure
in four years. The crops are gradually
increasing and the soil is building up
so that it will grow good crops with
out the use of commercial fertilizer.
The increase of crops helps to increase
the manure production of the farm, as
it enables me to keep more farm stock
The manure helps to further build up
the farm. Unless commercial fertilizer
does this it is questionable whether
| it pays the farmer for it's purchase
and application in uost instances
A. J. Lebb, Albion, w. Va.