The log cabin Democrat., 1909-06-17

are up against: The already deh- cient quantity of nitrogen in our soils is continually being reduced by the crops we remove and by the action of the elements. We must not only keep up, we must increase the supply before we can make the crops we should. How are we to do this?
 There are two ways: CD We can get it in commercial fertilizers, or (2) we can get it by the gro Aing of leguminous crops,
 eve have tried the fertilizer plan-that is, we have tried the putting on of 4 to 6 pounds per acre, at a cost of 20 cents or more a pound, to replace that contained in the crops we took of. In the seed of cotton crop making 25o pounds of lint to the acre there will be about I6 pounds of nitrogen. This, at 20 cents, is worth S 20
 much more than the farmer gets for it. When he puts on the land
 800 pounds of 6-2-2 goods he ap
 plies only 6 pounds of nitrogen
 which costs him at least SI.2o, and leaves his land poorer by 10 pounds of nitrogen than it was in the be- ginning. As Prof. Massey says,
 He sells the nitrogen in his cot ton seed at about 10 cents pound and buys back a fraction of 1t in commercial fertilizers at 20. Then if the land is left bare till the next cotton crop is planted, the winter rains will wash out more nitrogen than the crops remove. The result of this method of trying to supply nitrogen is shown Tn the low average yields of all staple crops in the South in the thousands of acres of land abandoned because they will no longer produce enough to pay for working them, i'll the low average income and the con- sequent poverty of Southern farm CTS.
 "The second way to get this necessary nitrogen, the growing of crops, is not an un- tried way. The best farmers de- pend largely upon it and there are few who have not tried 1t at some time or other. But it should be the rule and not the exception. No Southern farmer should need to buy any nitrogen in commercial fertilizers, except for special crops or under special conditions where a quick acting form is needed. The picture and the letter printed here with show how this may be done. Crimson clover in the winter and COwpeas in the summer, these two crops - not necessarily following each other, ordinarily they should not-would if properly used, in five years enable the farmers in the South to grow better crops than they do now without spending one cent for nitrogen where now S25,- 900 % is expended.
 "It is only a question of whether the farmer will let nitrogen inn poverish him or make it help en- rich him. Can any one conceive of any good reason for buying at 20 cents per pound what he can get for nothing-can even get paid for taking? For the legumes not only supply nitrogen, they make the finest feed for all sorts of stock; and if one-thlrd the land planted in cotton were each year devoted to leguminous crops in five years, there would not only be more bales Of cotton made at a much smaller cost per bale, but there would also be more and bet ter live stock in the South, better crops of all kinds, fewer bills to pay for feed and supplies, more money coming i'll and less going out, richer farmers and a more prosperous country.
 "The most prosperous farmers of the South, almost without ex- ception,' get their nitrogen by growing legumes; the poorest ones get theirs from the fertilizer bag. One way leads to poverty, the other leads to prosperity; and it is for each man to choose which path he will travel. "
 Bear in mind that this article deals in the amount of nitrogen ill a given amount of cotton seed, and the amount contained in given amount of commercial fertilizer. Ii shows conclusively that we can grow our own nitrogen, making profit. whereas, to buy it, is loss to the farmer