Golden Valley chronicle. (Beach, Billings County, N.D.) 1905-1916, 1907-11-07
SOIL IMPROVEMENT
BY Prof. HI. G. Phelps.

Whatever the crop in whose cult.
walton the farmer is engaged, the care
and preparation of the soil is the first
and most important matter that COM
mands his attention. Having for some
years past annually mixed and pre-
pared for use some Is or 90 tons of
chemical fertilizers for the improve
ment Of the soil of whose cultivation
l have had charge, and noting the
marked increase in the cost of the
same, or of some portions thereof, 1
have come to be more and more thor
oughly convinced of the necessity of
resortfng to some other means to eff
feet the needed results. With nitrate
of soda up to $50 per ton, an advance
of ten or twelve dollars within the
past few years. it is manifest that the
ordinary sources of nitrogen supply
are becoming exhausted. Muriate Of
potash, however, has only slightly in
creased and phosphate is actually low
err, showing that the mineral manurcs
still hold out. 1t has been estimated
by scientific Investigators that the
natural supply of phosphoric acid and
potash now remaining in the soil is
equal to the production of 500 annual
crops, while the nitrogen supply is
sufficient for only about 100
In years past the farmers of the
west got rid of their manure by draw
ing the same out onto the ice of the
rivers in the winter. that ii might be
carried away down the stream in the
spring, never thinking it desirable to
apply 1t to the land Now after many
years of continual cropping with
wheat or corn, they find it necessary
not only to save and apply their
manure, but also to buy some com
mercial fertilizer. Prof Snyder, of
the Minnesota experiment station. has
shown by experiments that in eight
years OF successive cropping with
wheat there was a loss to the soil of
] 400 pounds OF nitrogen. though the
wheat itself took but 200 pounds
When he raised wheat but five years
out Of the eight, with one year in
clover and two in oats, there was u
nitrogen loss of only $50 pounds. BY
growing corn, oats. and clover for
three years of the eight. and making
two applications of stable manllre-a
light coat each time-thc loss of nj
trOgen from the soil was reduced to
100 pounds. Thus it is demonstrated
that the continual growing Of the
same crop tends to rapid depletion OF
the soil, while rotation in which
some leguminous crop is introduced
operates to check the same. The cot
ton fields of the south are a fOrcible
illustration of the deteriorating effect
of the continual production of one
crop, as we'll as the wheat fields of
| the west.
What we need to understand is, that
the st0red-up elements of fertility in
the soil are to be regarded as SO much
potential energy, a portion of which
by our cultivation processes, is con
verted into active energy, and that
we have so managed the soil, in fact
| that a large portion of this active en-
ergy has been wasted. We must
therefore, seek to adopt such proc
esses as will conserve and preserve
this stored-up energy, except such as
is necessarily used in crop production
We know now that there are Other
than mere chemical processes going
on in the soil. There are bacteria
processes that play an important par
in this branch of natural economy
and we must so shape our, methods O
cultivation as to get the best advan
tage of these latter processes, and Thu
we can do by growing to greater ex
tent what are known as the legumir
Gus crops, such as clover, cowpea'
soy beans, winter vetch, etc.
There is a class of bacteria know
as nitrogen fixers," rather than gail
erers, which take the free nitroge
from the air and store it up. 1t
through the operation of bacteria tha
the potential energy in the soil is col
verified into plant food for the use c
the growing crop. The conditions al
most favorable for their work in war;
weather and it is in such weather tina
the loosening of the soil by cultivatiO