Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1910-01-18

FIG. Wow FERTILITY Is WASTED.
if given time. Crops of weeds will
spring up. make a considerable growth |
and die down and rot In the course
of few years the humus supply will
be renewed. locked up elements of fer
tility will become available. and the
field will again produce profitable
crops.
If rotation is practiced so as to even
up the demands on the soil, with
clover or some other legume to gather
nitrogen from the air, the soil will
continue productive for a much longer
time Even then it will not keep on
yielding profitable crops always. Com
mercial fertilizers may help to stave
off the day of reckoning, but after the
farmer has contributed hundreds Of
dollars to the pockets of the fertilizer
manufactures he will find that even
this method of maintaining fertility
cannot be depended upon.
i Keeping the Soil Productive.
There are three factors on which
1 the productivity of the soil primarily
| depends-the amount of available min
| eral plant food elements which it con-
tainS, its physical condition and the
amount of moisture it will hold. Nj
trogen. one of the three most important
chemical elements in the soil. can be
obtained from the air in unlimited
quantities by the use of legumes, such
as clover and alfalfa. The other two.
phosphorus and potassium. are present
in most soils in fairly large quantities,
although much of the supply is in
unavailable form. Good tillage and
we'll planned rotations do much to
make these elements available. When
the total supply becomes low it can
be renewed by the application of ferti-
lizers. This is all, however. that fer
tilizers will do. They will not i'm
prove the physical condition of the
soil nor increase it's moisture holding
capacity.
The use of liberal amounts of clover
in the rotation will add to the humus
supply of the soil and so increase it's
moisture holding capacity. Humus
acts like sponge. forming a store
house for water that would otherwise
be wasted. Humus also improves the
physical condition of the soil, making
it lighter and mellower Take pan
full of clay and a painful of rich black
surface soil. wet them thoroughly and
place them in the sun. When the clay
is dry it will be baked almost as hard
as brick. while little stirring will
make the black dirt as mellow as ever.
This difference in the two soils is due
solely to humus.
The hunus supply cannot be main,
! taned by the use of clover unless a
crop is plowed under at frequent in
tervals. 1t takes considerable time
for this clover to rot enough to form
humus. and the turning under of Sc
large an amount of green matter at
once is liable to make the land sour
This condition can be corrected by the
use of lime, but this means trouble
and expense
The Value of Manure.
The only way to keep the soil in the
highest possible state of productivity
is to keep live stock and apply the
manure to the land. Barnyard manure
adds large amounts of the elements OF
fertility to the soil. An average OF
; 80 per cent of the nitrogen, phosphoru:
and potassium in the food eaten is
passed out in the manure. This per
centage is highest in fattening animal!
and lowest in young stock. The ele
ments of fertility removed when grair
), is sold as compared with those remov
ed by live stock are striking!y shown
, in the following table. The prices OF
the elements are figured at the approx
innate rate that would have to be pait
ii they were purchased in the form
of commercial fertilizers. The approx
innate yield of one acre is given in eacl
case:
,, Value of tn,
nitrogen phos
: Kind of crop. phoruS and potas
Corn SUM contained
> Grain, rs bushels. ......................$ l36
Stoyer. two ns,."....".............. 81