The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-01-06

for fruit and tuber we generally want potash to stand In the lead
 "It will be noted that thus far we have said nothing about any particu- lar formula for any particular crop or
 line of crops. As we suggested at the
 beginning. each type of soil. as. well as each crop. requires its partisular fer
 tilizer formula. Now. if we will hut
 reflect little. we shall see that either
 good or poor farming will change the
 formula each year. Hence the impos-
 sibility of constructing a fertilizer for
 muia that can be of general applica- tion for any great length of time
 Let us study the above proposition for moment Suppose we take the formula of ten per cent phosphoric acid. two per cent potashl and two per cent nitrogen and appiy%oO pounds of
 this mixture to an acre of our average
 uplands. From this application of soc
 pounds to the acre we put into our
 soils fifty pounds of phosphoric acid. ten pounds of potash. and ten pounds of nitrogen. In October we SOW the land to hairy vetch and in the spring turn this crop under green. By so do- ing We wifi add to burners of land
 about twenty-two pounds of nitrogen. fifty-one pounds of phosphoric acid, and thirteen pounds of potash. all be- fore the regular summer crop of cot
 ton etc, is planted. We can thus re- duce the percentage of every element in our formula the first year. If we now rHt rows of cowpeas between the rows of cotton during the summer and seed the land to vetch again in the fall, the following year we will need only an application of pbosphoric acid to produce good crop. A good growth of cowpeas turned under adds to the
 soil about forty pounds of nitrogen.
 thirty pounds of potash. and ten pounds of phosphoric acid as against
 ten pounds of nitrogen. ten pounds of potash, and fifty pounds of phos- phoric acid from the application of
 500 pounds of the 10. 2. 2. goods above
 mentioned.
 we thus see that by this method of green maturing we can soon eliminate on many of our soils at least, the use
 of nitrogen and potash altogether. We
 shall find. that we shall be able, gradu-
 ally. to reduce the percentage of phos- phoric acid on many of our soils and finally. to discard the use of commer-
 cial fertilizers altogether. To illus
 trate. some time ago. MT. Philip Wil- lingham of Ramsey, Ala, purchased a piece of poor, sandy land having. a
 clayey sub-soil. When purchased this
 land would not produce over one
 fourth of a bale of cotton nor over SlBHt UubuetS Ol COIH LO LlG dCIc. N1C began to improve this land by deep blowing and green maturing. Each year he grew cowpeas on this land and each year ran his blow a little deeper He now blows this land twelve inches deep and gets not one. but three fourths of bale of cotton and not eight but twenty-five bushels of corn to the acre and has never used pound
 of commercial fertilizer.
 We said mOulant ac0 that 0anr
 farming would change our fertilizer formula also. Starting with our for
 mer application of 500 pounds to the
 acre of a 10, ?. goods we will say we
 gather from this fertilization a half
 hale of cotton to the acre. In the fall
 we do not put vetch on the land and
 in the spring there is nothing to turn
 under but old cotton stalks and a small
 amount of dead crab grass. We now put on our application of 800 pounds of our former brand of fertilizer, and do we get the half bale Not as & rule. During the summer we do not put any cowpeas on the land and dur ing the following fall we let the land lie bare of vegetation--no vetch, crinl-
 son. or burr clover is sown-and in the spring We blow our land shallow and repeat the operation of the previous year. Can we pursue this method of
 farm practice and hope to get our half
 bale of cotton to the acre off our average land by the application of only 500 pounds of fertilizer? Mo-. this
 method of farming requires an in creased amount of fertilizer each year to produce the normal crop. The land
 thus treated gradually gets out or condition, and soon 1t will contain so little humus. and hold so little water
 and be so generally lifeless that we will find our money wasted in trying
 to farm 1t at all. Instead of getting
 half bale from the application of
 500 pounds of fertilizer we will be
 forced to apply, perhaps. 1,5OO pounds
 to the acre. We may then find it bet
 ter economy to make public pasture
 of the field
 "Organic matter Is the basis oe the
 life of all soils. and when this Is burn ed out by shallow preparation, clean