Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1909-04-20
Are Onr Soils Giving Out9
THAT pERNIcIoUs WORD, "INExHAUsT.
IBLE."


error in calling attention to the need Of
conservation in the case of plant food In
soils is plain to every one who has had
experience with soils. There is no need
for statistics; all that is required, l
think, is an exercise Of common sense.
Any one who plants and reaps crops
knows that it is ruinous to the soil to
keep on taking away without ever put
ting anything back.
American soils have been abused.
The woods have been cut down in order
to get them out of the way, and the soils
robbed I have been told by people
who have lived out West that the farm
ers so little understood the use of ma
nure that they have dumped it in any
hole or out-of-the-way place to get rid of
it. The English farmer never thinks Of
trying to raise crops without first ma
nuring his land; and no doubt one rea-
son for the high fertility of English
farms is found in the old custom of
landowners to stipulate in the terms OF
tenancy that no hay or manure shall be
sold. This provision is meant to act as
check on unscrupulous tenants who
may be tempted to impoverish the land
The landowner is looking for per-
petual rent, and it is to his interest to
see that the soil is not robbed. In this
country the soil-robber found his heav-
en-, for when he felt that the land was
beginning to make demands, he sold out
and moved to pastures new"
How pernicious is that word "inex-
haustible"! Surely it is unfortunate that
the department of agriculture should
try to tell US that the plant food in soils
is "iuexhaustible. Our ''inexhausti-
BILE" forests are estimated to hold tim
Der enough to last us for another 30
years. Many kinds of animals and fish
that have provided furs or food and
once seemed innumerable and mex
haustible are now we'll nigh extinct.
And so surely and certainly as 2 from
g leaves 4, any soil is the poorer by TAX
ing a crop off it and returning nothing
to it.
Let me quote little from an address
BY DR.. Cyril G.. Hopkins of Illinois,
given before the American Society Of
Agronomy at Cornell University last
July. DR.. Hopkins says that the plowed
soil q inches deep of an acre OF the
Illinois corn belt contains 1l9O pounds
of phosphorus. For 100 bushels Of corn
a year the total supply of phosphorus Is
sufficient for 70 years. In the most
abundant soil type in seven counties OF
southern Illinois, the total supply OF
nitrogen, to depth of 40 inches, is
sufficient for less than 90 such crops Of
corn. The total supply of potassium in
the peaty swamp lands q inches deep
would be sufficient for Al years. He
goes on: "The amounts Of plant food
referred to represent neither the social
ed available plant food, nor the acid
soluble portion, but the absolute total
contained in the soil strata mentioned.
/. As the result of hundreds OF
analyses of soils and crops, we know
that the average common prairie and
upland timber soils of Illinois contain
about 1000 pounds of total phosphorus
per acre-foot, and with equal chemical
and mathematical accuracy we know
that hundred such crops as we are now
growing on our richest and best fertil-
lied lands remove from the soil about
2OO0 pounds of phosphorus. A thou
sand years of such cropping would re-
auire every pound of phosphorus con-
tanned in our average soil to depth OF
ten feet"
If there are hundreds of square miles
of depopulated soil in China that were
exhausted long ago, that one object
lesson should be enough for the world;
why exhaust other hundreds of square
miles? Truly it is time to think of con-
seryation, and | think Mr.. Roosevelt
used his position to some purpose in
this relation. Besides all the other
things that have been mentioned as
subjects for conservation, there is an
other that have not seen listed. Most
of the population of civilized countries
live in cities. Cities imply sewers. The
products of the land 60 to the cities, 80
that, through the agency of man, the
products of the lands are made to flow
in a continuous and ever-increasing
stream down into the sewers and into
the sea. This waste should in some
form be returned to the land.-R. Bar
ton in Country Gentleman.