The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-07-13
HOW To MAKE POOR ;. land Rich

Why do we call any land poor? Is
it not because of some lack? We see
a horse with all his bones showing
ard cali him poor because he has had
an insufficient amount of food
Some do-scientists claim that
no land is poor because of lack of
plant food, or that nature will replace
enough of this as fast as crops take it
out of teh water supply in the soil is
sufficient. But if one of these 'sci-
entists' should try to grow crops
down in the pine barrens with noth-
ing but water, he would soon find
that it takes more than sand and wa
ter to make crops. These ''Scientists
say that fertilizers are not efficient be-
cause of the plant food they contain,
but because they purify or sterilize
the soil from the poisonous excreta Of
previous crops. But when one takes
a piece of barren sand on which no
crops have been grown, and by appli-
cations of soluble fertilizer does get
some crop, it would seem that the
land, like the horse, is poor by reason
of lack of food.
But we know that the application
Of fertilizers to barren sand has but
a temporary effect, since the leachy
soil lets so all that the crop has not
taken. What, then, is needed to get
that barren sand into condition to
retain productiveness In the first
place. it lack ability to hold moisture
to dissolve the plant food that may
be applied, and plants suffer in dry
weather. But year after year coat
that sand over with stable manure,
and you. will find that crops not only
improve. but the sand begins to look
like real soil, and maintains plants
better in dry weather
This is the result of the organic ma
terial brought to the soil with the ma
ffn 9ar
or and made more retentive of mois-
ture because this decaying organic
matter has added what It needed 1t
has added the darkening, moisture
retaining material we call humus, and
instead of a barren sand, we have a
soil which is productive, and which
can be maintained in productiveness
so long as we maintain the supply OF
humuS material.
Our Soils Poor for Lack OF Humus
/ have taken an extreme case or
soil poverty, a deep sand ike thal
of the pine barrens of the South, and
if such a soil can be made into pro
ductive one by the accumulation OF
humus, is it not evident that diff
ferent soil that is unproductlve, but
has clay enough below 1T or mlXed
in it to make it retentiYe OF plant
food, can be still more rapidly re
stored to a productive condition. ana
be no longer poor? Our sandy loans
with clay bottom, and our clay loan
soils, are many of. them unproductlVe
and called worn out though they
were formerly very productive SOILS.
But these soils have still a great store
of plant food in them, and are not
like the barren sand hills. They
have been robbed of available plant
food and have gotten into condition
W. refuses
more food out to the crops. But
they are not worn out, and [ agree
with the soil scientists to the extent
that | do not believe that any soil
of good mechanical makeup, which
was fertile when fresh can ever be
entirely worn out, though by bad
treatment can be put into such a con-
dltion that plant roots cannot get at
the store of food that is in it. The
SOIL has come to baking hard, plows
up cloddy, and soon runs together
and the delicate roOtlets canont pene-
trate it and get at the food
The bacteria which carry on the
work OF nitrification in the sol! have
been starved out because the vege-
table decay. the humus, which is their
nome has been burnt out in constant
clean culture. and the soil needs hu-
mus TO prevent its hard baking char
acter, its drying out in the sun and
especially it needs humus because of
us ability to retain moisture that,
aided by the humic acids, will dis
solve the plant food it still contains.
1t needs humus to accumulate and
retain the nitrogen that is essential to
plant life. and which. more than any
other plant food is washed from the
soil.
But, says one, 1--WE cannot make
manure enough to restore the humus
IS Mr.. Tufts did by buying food for
cattle on the barren sand at Pines