The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1909-05-14
How Lands Grow Poor.

How Lands Grow Poor.
man when he applies 200 pounds
S-2-2 fertilizer TO a cotton crop
Cthere Is in that sixteen pounds of
phosphoric acid. four pounds Of nitro
gen. and four pounds Of potashl, and
sells the seed containing more Of
these plant foods than he applied in
the fertilizer, is it not evident that
the plants have drawn on the soil for
more than was furnished in the fer
tiIizer?
Then he finds that the same
amount OF fertilizer will not give
him as much crop on the same land,
and he concludes that fertilizers are
only stimulants And, as he uses
them, they do amount to that very
thing, enabling the plant to get a
start that enables it to draw more
heavily on the soil, and the soil gets
poorer.
Then he lets the land lie with only
the dead cotton stalks on 1t all win
ter. and the rains wash out more SOL
uble plant food, when a crop of GRIM
son clover would have saved the
waste and would have added not only
some extra nitrogen, but lot of or
ganic matter to form humus and help
restore the waste.
A good rotation of crops is not, as
some suppose. TO rest the land. but
to make it produce heavier crops We
are thus enabled to get constantly in
creasing crops while maintaining and
increasing the productive capacity of
the soil through the restoration of the
wasted humus. In the annual cult
walton in cotton we use up the humus
(the home of the bacteria that pro-
notes nitFifcation in the soiD. and
the constant exposure to the sun, the
greatest OF all sterilizers, completes
the killing of the bacteria, so that
we have left only the old dead skel-
eton of sand and clay, robbed of its
life, the humus. Such a soil is really
dead soil. and while little apDlica-
tion of fertilizers may temporarily
galvanize it into sort of life, 1t soon
goes back to its dead condition,
deader, IL we may so speak. than be-
fore.
This condition has been the result
Of small applications of low grade
fertilizers solely for the purpose of
getting more crops from the dead
soil, and the farmer is continually
applying to US for a formula that
will cure it, when no fertilizer for
mula that was ever compounded will
restore 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
"%~@S0~ 1AJ RuACAdoCu uAtIOSGus
there was 500 pounds per acre more
nitrogen in the soil than when the ro-
tion began.
And yet. all over the South men
are selling many times the nitrogen
in their cottonseed that they apply
afterwards in fertilizers. when they
could have had an abundance of nit
rogen without buying announce. Our
cotton lands are kept poor, and grow
ing poorer, because we win not let
them get rich by giving them the
S-S1er chance through good farming.
The only way to reanimate our dead
soils is by restoring to them the life
giving humus, and this can only be
done through a good short rotation
in which legume crops come in fire.
1uently on the land and are fed to
cattle to make maure.-Professo
Massey.
A Farm Savings Bank.