Golden Valley chronicle. (Beach, Billings County, N.D.) 1905-1916, 1907-10-31
SOIL IMPROVEMENT
By Prof. H. 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 20 tons of
fertilizers for the improve
ment of the soil of whose cultivation
l have had charge. and noting the
marked increase in the cos, of the
same, or of some portions thereof,
have come to be more and more thor
oughly convinced of the necessity of
resOrtfng to some other means to ef-
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. 1t is. manifest thar 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 manures
still hold out. 1t has been estimated
by scientific investigators tina, he
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 it 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
1 400 pounds of nitrogen, though the
wheat itself took but 800 pounds
When he raised wheat but five years
out of the eight, with one year in
clover and two in oats, there was a
nitrogen loss of only $50 pounds BY
growing corn, oats, and clover for
three years of the eight, and making
two applications of stable manure-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 o.
the soil, while a rotation in which
some leguminous crop is introduced
operates to check the same. The cot
ton fields .of the south are forcibl'
illustration of the deteriorating effec
of the continual production of on
crop, as we'll as the wheat fields o
the west.
What we need to understand is, tina
the stored-up elements of fertility II
the soil are to be regarded as so mucl
potential energy, a portion of which
by our cultivation processes, is con
tCTISu lulO dClttc GuCl BY, anu Via
we have so managed the soil, in fact
that 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 a.
is necessarily used in crop production
We know now that there are Other
than mere chemical processes goint
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 Of
cultivation as to get the best advan
tage of these latter processes, and this
We can do by growing to a greater ex
tent what are known as the legumin
GUS crops. such as clover, cowpeas
soy beans, winter vetch, etc.
There is a class of bacteria know
as nitrogen fixers," rather than gath
erers. which take the free nitrogen
from the air and store it up. 1t Is
through the operation of bacteria that
the potential energy in the soil Is con
yerted into plant food for the use OF
the growing crop. The conditions are
most favorable for their work in warm
weather and it is in such weather that
the loosening of the soil by cultivation