Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1912-06-12
USE!Of FERTILIZERS
WILL ALWAYS PAY
If The Fertilizers are Used
IntcIligeDtIy

commercial fertilizers, and his land
gets better he is likely to use them
more rather than less, and to find
them increasingly profitable.
Let us see if we can't put the mat
ter in the simplest form and see why
this is true: A fertile soil. as one Of
our correspondents says, is one which
will produce good crops. Crops grow
in the soil and are made up of diff
ferent substances, some of which
they get from the air and some from
the soil. These substances, we term
plant foods. The size of the crop is
| limited by the amount of these sub
stances which it is enabled to get
or rather, by the amount of the least
plentiful of them. This limiting food
is nearly always phosphorus (phos-
phoric acid, potassium (potash) or
nitrogen. All these are derived from
the soil. The mere amount of any of
these substances in the soil, how
ever, does not of itself determine the
growth the crop can make. They
must all be taken up by the very small
root-hairs of the plants after they
have been dissolved in the saltwater,
If any of them be in such combina-
tions that they will not dissolve in the
soil be hard, so that the roots cannot
penetrate it; if it be dry, SO that there
is not sufficient saltwater to dissolve
the substances upon which the plant
feeds; If it be soggy, so that air can
not circulate and the bacteria which
change the unavailable foods to avail
able forms cannot thrive, the crop will
be cut short. If there be a lack Of
potash, no matter how much of the
other plant foods may be present or
how good the soil condition may be,
the crop will be limited by that scar
city of potash. On the other hand, #
there be waiting to be dissolved
enough of all the plant foods to mako
= record Weld. and the soil he dry and
lead so that it does not retain mois-
ture there will be only a small crop
made.
All these things help to fix the size
of the crop. On most Southern soils
tost crons are limited by the poor
texture of the soil-by its being too
wet. which shows the need of under
drainage, or by lack of vegetable
matter or humum-rather than by
8 lack of plant foods. This does not
mean, however, that it will not paw
to annlv plant foods-which is exact
ly what is done when fertilizers are
applied. Better methods of tillage.
better drainage, more humus in the
soil, would undoubtedly enable most
land to make larger crops than it row
does with much less fertilizer than is
now used. or with none at all
But Southern soils are not rich in
plant foods. Some are poor in potash.
NEST in nitrogen, practically all in
phosDhOric acid Even after tillage,
drainage and the addition of humum
have enabled the land to make much
better crops, these crops will still be
limited by the scarcity of one plant
food as compared with the others. Will
it not pay, then, to supply this needed
substance and thus still further in
crease the crop? OF course, it will
The men with the richest soils-the
truckers and intensive farmers are to-
day the ones who can use commercial
fertilizers most literally and get the
most profit from them, and it will al
ways be so.
Let no one talk about getting to the
point where he will not have to use
fertilizers. Let him fill his soil with
vegetable matter cultivate it well,
give it good drainage and, if he stu
dies fertilizers and his soil, he will use
more fertilizers than ever-not be-
cause he has to, but because it will
pay him.-The Progressive Farmer.