The Republican journal., 1911-01-19
Fertility and Growing Force

To THE EDITOR OF lhE 0OuhNAL
Fertility is plant food, or plant sub
stance, but growing force Is not sub
stance; it is ammonia in the process o.
evaporation. Ammonia in pure state
isNH3. or in other words, it Is nitrogen
one part and hydrogen three parts. This
is formed in nature from water and air.
Water is H2 O, or hydrogen two parts
and oxygen one part, and air is N 0, or
nitrogen four parts and oxygen one part.
Dry earth is we'll filled with air. When
the rain falls upon dry earth this brings
nitrogen and hydrogen together. Nitro
gen and hydrogen are natural enemies
and ALWAYS drift or push away from each
other whenever they are able to do SO.
Liquid ammonia when evaporating will
make bulk or quantity Of gas about a
thousand times as large as the original
liquid. This immense expanding force
makes the force of all explosives and
makes all growing force; and makes,
evidently, all that expanding force we
feel in the nose and call odor, favored
by the substance it rises from. Pure
water falling upon dry earth makes a
compound of hydrogen two parts, nitro
gen four parts and oxygen two parts.
AS earth itself is largely carbon, which
strongly attracts oxygen and nitrogen,
and weakly attracts hydrogen, the nat
ural result of again drying out the earth
by the suns rays, which readily converts
all liquids into gases, but draws hydrogen
most, results in bringing from the earth
large quantities of the hydrogen, with
small quantity of its enemy, the nitro
gen. In other words, the evaporation
of moisture from the earth produces am
monia, which, taken up by the plant
roots, becomes evaporating ammonia in
the plant, or the outward pushing, ex-
banding or growing force of the plant,
and thus expanding and escaping makes
large part of the vacuum or suction
that draws food into the plant.
Beside natures way of producing this
ammonia, or growing force, by simply
alternately drying and wetting the earth,
we may obtain it from stable manure or
from commercial fertilizers.
To get an idea of the growing force in
the dry earth, or any other dry substance,
simply moisten it with water, then smell
of it. The strength of the odor repre-
sents the strength of it's growing force.
But this odor does not represent plant
food. Plant food is the substance that
remains in the plant when it is grown.
AS the greater part of plant food is
water, and the other and lesser part is
earthly substance, it is evident that hu-
mainly never need to worry about a suf-
fcient supply of plant food. The farm
er's great problem is how to obtain and
feed the right amount of ammonia. 1t
is an easy matter to kill a plant with too
much ammonia, but more commonly we
stunt plant for want Of it.
The art of keeping two or three inches
Of the top of the earth as dry fine
mulch, to be moistened each night by
the falling dew, to be converted into
ammonia by the morning sun, is one of
our best methods. And this is only half
the process, because the hot sun draws
up moisture from the subsoil to water
the roots and also to moisten this dry
mulch and thus make more ammonia.
A.
the plant, is either mineral or vegetable
substance. Animals live by devouring
other animals, and plants do best when
they have good share of decomposing
plant food to live on. We call this de-
composing plant food humus, which for
the most part is dead grass and dead
roots. This humus is so abundant in the
new farms of the West that it makes
the soil almost black, in the low places
several feet deep, and often in the high
est ground several inches deep. This
humus is so valuable, not only as plant
food but also as a holder of moisture
within reach of the roots, that no other
ASA SAAiANA 10 RSSOoo0Ay OAA IuOoC 4dA 1lSs "A
WORKOUT farm means simply that the
humus has been exhausted and the fine
earth washed out, and modern science
tells US that we must return some decay
ing matter to the soil. Barn manure is
best for quick results, but straw, ripe
grass, grass roots, leaves, rotten wood
and muck are most enduring.
The mineral food of plant is only the
finest earth that runs off readily as
muddy water. The level plains of the
West do not suffer by this wash as our
farms do in billy New England. We can
go into the swales and cart this fine
earth, with the dead grass that washed
down with it, back to the hilltops. This
is black with humus and very valuable,
and every spring freshet carries much of
it into the sea. The next best is the
blue clay. This has no humus in it, but
it is ground so fine that nearly all of it is
available as mineral plant food, and when
carted to the gravelly uplands it is of
immense value.
The worst feature of commercial fer