Norwich bulletin., 1911-07-22

acre he puts back rather more of one thing the corn uses than the corn has actually taken away. Also, that he puts back considerably less of two or three other things. His stable manure has helped a lot. but, as every practi- cal farmer knows, it is hardly possible to keep on raising bang-up good corn year after year on the same acre, with stable manure alone. It will grow,
 but it doesn't usually ''do we'll"
 What then? Suppose your twenty loads of stable manure return to the soil a quarter more ammonia than the
 corn crop took out of it. Then, by re-
 ducing the amount to fftten loads, you have just balanced your ammonia debt to the soil. You've paid back just what you owe it, of ammonia. But even your twenty doads did not re- store all the phosphoric acid and pot ash the corn had used. Fifteen loads will give even less. So the inquiring farmer who wants to know the why
 of it buys a few bags of rock phos- phate or ground bone or something else that is loaded up with phosphoric acid, and a bag of sulphate of potash or a load of wood ashes which are them on with fifteen loads of sta ble manure By this com mbination he has ''evened up" matters somewhat. He has actually restored to the acre lIl6 piIlCipdl lldDL-lOOuS WHICH lI0 corn ate out of it, in very near the proportions the corn ate them. The result, usually, is better corn and more of it.
 But now comes along the advanced" phosphoric acid and your potash in handy. clean shape and you put it on easily and evenly. Why not buy your nitrogen the same way; get an abso- lute1y ven-balanced ration for your corn; get is in compact form; get it in comparatively clean mixture, save all the hard and dirty and clancy work of handling manure; and insure good crop every time? ?"
 Sounds all right, too. Doesn't seem to be any flaw in the logic of it. But, somehow. when you try it, it won't always work that way You may get the best nitrate of soda, and the best superphosphate, and the best potash salts that chemists can segregate and that money can buy. You may put them on your acre with scientific ac- curacy of combination and measure ment and distribution. But three times out of four your corn crops will dwindle, year after year. "Why?" Since Nature does nothing without reason for it, there must be a reason for this. What is it?
 
 The reason corn doesn't do well, year after year, on stable manure alone is because stable manure alone doesn't restore to the soil all the corn takes out of it. The reason the same corn won't do we'll year after year, on commercial fertilizers alone is be- cause they fail to add the 'Shumus" which seems essential; because they do not help in retaining the moisture which certainly is essential; because they allow the soil to compact itself instead of preserving that looseness of texture which seems necessary; and because they have no tendency to stimulate that meteorological action in the soil which is apparently reeui- site to change the crude forms of plant food in it into those which are eatable and digestible by the plant. Stable manure does all these things. Ii holds the soil moist by acting like 8 sponge; it keeps the soil porous. making it easier for the tiny rootlets to pierce to where their desired food is; it fills the soil with helpful bac- teria which change the crude constit- uents of earth into morsels off delect- able food for the plant.
 Now all this is general. It's bear ings all lie in their application. I have heard of a man raising good potatoes for thirty years in the same field by the use or cOmnerC1dl Ieflll1ZerS alone. have known of dairy farmers rais- ing magnificent yields of hay for generation by the use of stable manure alone. But these are rather excep- tional. Every different soil has it's own secrets; every different crop it's own demands every different crop it's own whims. Taking the years as they come and the country as a whole, with all it's widely varying crops, the ory and experience unite in indicating that the wisest, most economical and most successful method of feeding crops is that which combines stable manure with phosphares and potash, in such varying proportions as vary ing soils and crops demand
 The old fashioned farmer who can't find words sneering enough to express his opinion of those who buy their manure in bag and put it on with a. teaspoon would ordinarily be a more successful farmer if he wasn't so ..sot'' in his ideas. The advanced young ag- riculturist who has no use for the dung-fork and who tries to feed his farm solely on scientifically prepared rations of chemicals would ordinarily do better if he were not quite so brash.