The commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1896-1923, 1911-11-17

AoiuihS capacity second, 20 is. tfe water
escape from the surface without running
over the ground and washing it off
third, to permit the air to circulate
freely for a considerable depth in the
soil; fourth. to secure crops against
drouth by enabling the roots to go down
to perpetual moisture; fifth, to increase
the area from which plant roots may OBJ
tain food.
There is only one way to deepen a
this soil and that is by blowing a little
deeper every time it is broken and by
turning under vegetable matter, such as
corn and cotton stalks, cat and pea
stubble, grass and trash.
Poorly drained land cannot be proper
ly prepared in the spring, the rapid
evaporation will keep the soil cold re-
CARELESS of the temperature of the air,
thereby retarding the growth of the
crops, the roots of the growing plants
will spread put near the surface and
when the soil dries put during the hot
summer the crop fires or burns up before
maturity, large quantities of the water
evaporating from the soil makes it com
pact and solid and heavy to work.
Broad shallow bitches made with a
pillow and dump scraper are by far prefer
able for surface drainage to bitches
made with a spade. A broad shallow
ditch is much better for surface drainage
and can be easily crossed with plows and
cultivators thereby kept clean.
The soil must be kept full of life
giving vegetable matter or humus. 1t
must be in a loose, porous and open
condition so that air, water and plant
roots can easily come into contact with
every grain of it. The soil must be
full of vegetable matter to prevent it
from packing after heavy rains and to
increase the storage capacity for water
and thereby enable it to hold enough
water to carry the crop through the
longest drouth in the summer though
heavily fortified. The soil must be
full of humus to furnish food for the
microscopic life that makes the plant
food in the soil available for plants. 1t
matters not how much plant food the
soil may contain it will not yield maxi
mum crops unless bacteria are present
to make the plant food availabel. The
number of bacteria in the soil closely
follows the amount of humus in it.
By a suitable rotation of cotton, corn,
and peas, oats followed by peas, pea
nuts, soy beans or lespedeza, every acre
of our soil may be filled full of vegetable
matter in three years. The diversified
ton of crops, the turning under of corn
and cotton stalks, oat, pea, soy bean,
velvet bean, and other stubble. grass
and trash, and the application of barn
yard manure will soon fill our WORKOUT
cotton lands full of life-giving veg
etable matter, OF humus.
The soil must contain an abundance
of plant food in an available form in
order to yield maximum crops. Four
teen or fifteen of the elementary sub
stances enter into the composition of
plants. Cultivated soils generally con-
tain a sufficient supply of all the ele-
ments necessary to plant growth except
potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen.
Mississippi soils contain an abundance
of potassium in an available form. Our
soils are deficient in only two clements
nitrogen and PHOSPHORUS.
A rotation of crops, including legu-
minous crops, the eating of such legu-
minous crops as lespedeza, COW peas,
peanuts, soy beans, velvet beans, and
the most available concentrate, cotton
seed meal, by good stock and the appli-
cation of all the manure obtained from
the stock to the soil will place as much
nitrogen in the soil as is necessary to
produce maximum crops.
We are told in a bulletin issued by
the Louisiana station that one acre of
Spanish peanuts grown On comparative
ly poor pine land contained 1872 pounds
of nitrogen worth at commercial fer
t~iliZers' value, at least $4,000. An acre
of velvet beans contained 191 pounds
and an acre of COW peas 1Os pounds.
These crops made from two to three and
a half tons of feedstuff, richer in food
elements than wheat bran. When such
nitrogen gathering plants can be grown
on comparatively poor pine land and fed
to good stock without serious loss in
fertilizing value is there any excuse
for poor land, and let me add, for not
raising all kinds of good stock? No
country on earth has such advantages
for growing nitrogen gathering plants
and yet no country makes SO little use
of them.
Acid phosphate, the form in which
phosphorus is generally applied to the
soil as a fertilizer, is made by mixing
equal quantities or weights of ground
phosphate rock and sulphuric acid. The
only reason for adding the very expen-
sive s%ulphuric acid to the ground phos-
phate rock is to make the plant food in
the rock available for plants. Now
small quantities of the ground rock may
be added to the fresh barnyard manure
every day and the action of the acids in
the manure will make the plant food in
the ground rock soluble so that plants
may use it. Under the proper rotation
of crops with the legumes the soil will
be filled full of humus and nitrogen.
and the vegetable acids in the vegetable
matter will act or the ground rock and
make it available for plants. Soils full
of vegetable matter for several inches
deep need only ground phosphate rock
that can be obtained for about one
fourth the price of good acid phosphate.