The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1911-03-02
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SOIL DISEASES
Problems Confronting the
Farmer and Scientist
of Today.
BY ALFRED DAcHNoWsKI
Assistant Professor Of Botany at
Ohio State University.

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Success in agriculture depends
upon the extent Of our control over
two great silent but powerful forces.
One OF these is the life force in
plants. The other is the sum OF
those numerous external factors of
soil, climate and other living organ
isms which make up the plants en-.
vironment. Every plant, every crop.
orchard or forest, in form and be.
havior, is product of these forces
The Problems.
At the very outset he met many
difficulties. Among these the most
perplexing one has been the problem
of the conservatio of soil resources.
the problem of the permanent fertil.
ity of soils. The soil is the farmers
and the ,country's greatest asset OF
wealth. The causes which make one
parcel of land yield more in crops
than another similar piece of land ad-
Joining II ere among the leading
problems for investigation. Ferti-
llzers have been urged as the pana.
cea for all evils in the soils, but they
fail to cure in most cases. Some un-
known factor vitla.ed the validity OF
this time-honored recipe. In every
state OF the Union there are today
( large tracts of land which have
proven an exception to the "unques-
toned regularity" of results with fer
tilizers. Much of the virgin land of
the great West has yielded crops of
stunted, sickly plants. The physics,
the mechanics, the chemistry, the
bacteriology of soils was closely
studied, but with little avail. The
diagnosis were made for the soils,
but did not include the life of the
plant. The symptoms which the plant
exhibited, the lack Of sanitary condi.
tions for the plant, In short the need
and functions of the plants somehow
escaped notice.
Peat and Muck Soils.
! Our most productive agricultural
soils ere peat and muck soils Their
post-glacial origin and development
Is now well known. Laborious field
work has shown that climate and
soil must be re-interpreted from the
! point of view of the needs of the
/ plants. Detailed study of the physics,
mechanics and chemistry of these
soils failed to show why many of our
agricultural and native plants were
unable to occupy peat areas, and to
cope with the firmly entrenched ex-
elusive northern plant society. Only
by questioning the plant rather than
the soil, we are beginning to know
a number Of the illnesses to which
the soil is heir.
Ills of the Soil.
They range from mere fatigue" to
intermittent, periodic, and infectious
diseases. A strong, intimate, con-
trolling relation exists between
plants, native in peat bogs, and GER
tain soil bacteria and other low-form
organisms Injurious organic trans
formation products due to the activ-
ity of bacteria, fungi and protozoa
play an important inhibting role,
and render a field sterile to agricul-
tural plants. Mineral soils used as
absorbents retain these accommodating
injurious products indefinitely and
themselves become useless
We nave numerous experts In the
physics and chemistry of the environ
ment of plants.
The new lines OF research impera-
lively required deal with the guild
ance of the silent life energy iIto
channels which will give us new
plants which are more resistent to
disease, drought and frost.