Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1910-09-20
Manure VS.. Commercial Fertilizers.

Manure VS.. Commercial Fertilizers
(From Wallace Farmer.)
The experiment stations are furnish
ing us with much valuable information
on the subject of soil fertility, the value
of barnyard manure, and the use anC
abuse of commercial fertilizers. We
know of no man who has done better
work along this line than Professor Hop
kins of Illinois. In recent commu
nication to one of our exchanges
Professor Hopkins made q statement
which should be of great interest mo-
only to our Illinois readers, but those in
other states as well, which we give in
substance:
Potassium, usually called potash, is
not deficient in most soils. 1t is one oi
the abundant elements in nature. The
average surface soil of the Illinois corn
belt contains as much potash as the
average commercial fertilizer, ton fol
ton, and the subsoil is even richer than
the surface The total supply of po'
tassium in our surface soil is so great
that it is practically inexhaustible, and
in the average corn belt land is sufficient
TO meet the needs of the corn crop for
five thousand years, and with even a
fraction Of an inch of soil erosion during
a century the supply is absolutely per
manent. Practically all the potassium
in the soil is unavailable and if any con-
siderable amount of it were in solution,
i, would be lost. An important part OF
the business of farming is to make this
potassium available, not all at once, bui
gradually Practically not all the po
tassium that has been used for the pro-
duction of Illinois corn crops TOR the
past seveuty-five OF one hundred years
has been made available from the i'm
mense supply in the soil. The chief
agencies for making potassium soluble
are the products of decaying organic
matter. Wherever farmers fail to re-
turn organic matter to the soil, the sup
ply OF available potassium will likely
become deficient. This is true not only
of POTASSIUM, but also Of magnesium,
and other essential mineral ele-
ments.
We call particular attention to the
about the effect of decaying
organic matter. TO make this supply of
potassium available, We must apply de-
caying organic matter. This Is true
with reference TO phosphorus as well.
The whole drift Of Professor Hopkins
is 10 the effect that phos-
pilates in the shape of floats or rock
phosphate need vegetable matter in or
der 10 make them available. We come
now to the main point, upon which we
have insisted, 10, these many years.
IL the farmer will maintain the phys
ical condition of his soil, he need give
himself little concern about the mineral
except in sections like South
ern Illinois and parts of Missouri, where
the scientists have told him that phos-
phorus is De ficient There are sections
both in Illinois and Iowa where potash
is deficient, but they are limited to peat
lands, where, by reason of the method OF
peat formation, the supply of potash
and sometimes of phosphorus IL de
ficient. Here they must be supplied; :;
but outside of these districts, and inside
of the black lands of Illinois and the
great bulk of the soils in Iowa, Mime
sofa, Kansas, Nebraska and South Da
kota, the main point is to maintain the
physical condition.
TLls can be maintained for time by
good tillage, but tillsge in itself ex-
hausts the humus of the soil sooner or
later The better the tillage the more
rapidly it exhausts it, and there comes
a time when tillage itself will not main
tain the physical condition and there
must be a supply of vegetable matter.
One is by growing IL in the shape OF
clover and utilizing the weeds on the
farm, and the other is by turning the
farm more or less into live stock farm,
utilizing this vegetable matter for the
production of meats for the worlds
market, and then carefully restoring the
vegetable matter in the shape of manure.
IL is for this reason that we have en-
phasized TO such an extent the neces-
sity of maintaining more or less live
stock on every farm, of conscientiously
giving to the land its own in the shape
of manure; and to do this cheaply We
have maintained that no farmer can
farm properly without the Intelligent
use of manure spreader. We are quite
well aware that this involves revolu-
ton in the methods of farming in good
deal of our territory, revolution that
must come slowly, for the simple reason
that il requires an education along live
stock lines, which is much more difficult
than the mere matter of growing grain.
We take off our hat TO the man who can
grow one hundred bushels of corn to the
acre; but we regard as worthy of much
higher honor the man who can utilize to
the best advantage this one hundred
bushels corn, stalks aud all, by convert
ing it into live stock of such a quality
that it commands high if not the high
est, price on the market.
Ii is only a question of time when
these lands that are sOwn continually
to any one grain crop, no matter what 1t
is, will get out of physical condition.
This can be restored only by the ap-
plication of vegetable matter, and it is
only by the action OF this vegetable mat
ter that the potash and phosphorus
which the soils usually have in abun-
ance, can be rendered available for the
use of plants.