The enterprise-recorder. (Madison, Fla.) 1908-1933, 1909-06-03
HOW Lands Grow Poor.

How Lands Grow Poor.
A man when he applies zoo pounds
% fertilizer to a cotton crop
mere IS in that sixteen pounds of
.sosphoric acid, four pounds of nitro
,sn and four pounds of potash) and
.ns the seed containing more of
,ssse plant foods than he applied in
nj fertilizer, is 1t not evident that
eb olants have drawn on the soil for
lore than was furnished in the fer
hlifer?
Then he finds that the same
mount of fertilizer will not give
Mn as much crop on the same land,
.pd he concludes that fertilizers are
only stimulants. And, as he uses
Aem. they do amount to that very
ming, enabling the plant to get a
aart that enables It to draw more
heavily on the soil, and the soil gets
poorer.
Then he let's the land lie with only
me- dead cotton stalks on It all win
ier and the rains wash out more SOL
he plant food, when a crop of Grim
son clover would have saved the
waste and would have added not only
some extra nitrogen, but a lot of or
anlc matter to form humus and help
restore the waste.
A good rotation of crops is not, as
ome suppose. to rest the land, but
10 make It produce heavier crops. We
are thus enabled to get constantly in
reaslng crops while maintaining and
Increasing the productive capacity of
he soil through the restoration Of the
Wasted humus. In the annual culti-
ration in cotton we use up the humus
1.-THE home Of the bacteria that pro-
notes nitrifcation in the soil), and
lie ebnstant exposure to the sun, the
greatest of all steriizers, completes
he killing Of the bacteria, so that
We have left only the old dead skel-
/ eton Of sand and clay, robbed of its
he, the humus. Such a soil is really
dead soil, and while a little applica-
ton of fertilizers may temporarily
gayanize it into a sort of life, It soon
goes back to its dead condition,
deader, If we may so speak, than be-
fore.
This condition has been the result
Of lmall applications of low grade
h isers solely for the purpose of
getting more crops from the dead
soll, and the farmer is continually
applying to us for a formula that
Will cure 1t, when no fertilizer for
nula that was ever compounded will
estore the life of the soil
The only way to do this is to use
The fertilizers for the purpose of re-
storing the humus, the new-ground
conditions in the soil. Used for the
Increased production of the legume
crops, we need not buy the costly nit
rogen for by good rotation of crops
With the legumes- to feed, and the
manure properly saved and used, we
can Increase the nitrogen content in
our soils without buying a cents
worth of nitrogen in a fertilizer.
The Minnesota Station found that
after ten years of rotative cropping !
Without any purchased nitrogen,
there was 800 pounds per acre more
nitrogen in the soil than when the re-
ton began.
And yet, all over the South men
are selling many times the nitrogen |
10 their cottonseed that they apply |
afterwards in fertilizers, when they |
could have had an abundance of nit
rogen without buying an ounce. Our
cotton lands are kept poor, and grow
Tag poorer, because we will not let |
'aem get rich by giving them the
roper chance through good farming.
lae only way to reanimate our dead
soils Is by restoring to them the life
nnng humus, and this can only be
qone through good short rotation
10 which legume crops come in fire.
0aently on the land and are fed to
s.Vle to make maure.-Professor
Massey.