The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1913-08-29
PERMANENT SOIL FERTILITY

| There is another feature of waste
1ul extravaganza that is very COM
mon with our Florida farmers that
wish to call your attention to, viz. {:
the method Of care and waste of or
| binary farm manures.
The idea has come down to us
from our fathers that farm manures
should be we'll rotted before they
are applied to the land; this is all
right II the proper conditions are OBJ
served. II they are leached in the
rains they lose heavily, the nitro
gen mostly teaching away. II they
heat the nitrogen is decomposed and
the ammonia of it is carried on in
the air, which you can readily smell
II you pass that way.
The Ohio experiment station, as
well as several others have made a
careful study of this phase of the
matter, and have found that the fer
tilizing value is diminished three
hfths by lying in the barnyard from
spring to fall and that, too, when
on good clay SOIL What must the
loss be when it lies on such sandy
soil as we have in Florida?
The truth of the matter is we
have very little left but the humus
and what little phosphorus was in
the plants Of which it was made.
If it is thoroughly decomposed, the
potash that was in the plants has
been leached away as we'll.
To overcome this waste the best
farm practice is now to spread it
upon the soil or in the field as soon
as 1t Is removed from the stables.
There are two methods practiced
in the dairy regions of the North.
One Is to use finely ground rock
phosphate with the bedding as an alb
sorbant and remove every morning
and spread it upon the fields. The
other is to mix the phosphate and
bedding and apply IN such abund-
ance as to be complete absorbent
and remove and spread upon the
lands as often as necessary to keep
the barns from becoming too full.
In recent years barns have been con.
structed with cement floors ard Of
such height as to allow the accumu.
latlon of winter, the stock are al
lowed to run loose, but enough alb
sorbent lis added every night to keep
them clean, the tramping packs i. so
firmly that it does not ferment in
their cool winter seasons. How it
will work in this climate the writer
will be able to inform you in about
a year, for he Is now testing the
same methods out here. Cement
floor, rock phosphate. as an assist
ant absorbent and plenty of bedding
The question as to the length Of time
we can go without cleaning out will
depend upon the heating, and the
breeding of flies. The health officer
OF Jacksonville, Fla, says that the
only way to prevent the breeding o.
flies Is to have cement floors. as lie
has found fly larvae three and in
some cases four feet in the ground
where they had plank foors. Or
course 1t would be no better III this
respect where no plank were used,
as Is generally the case on Florida
farms. If the mixture of the phos-
phate with the bedding keeps down
the breeding of flies, we will he able
to so report, and can leave the clean
ing of the stalls to our own convea-
fence. The longer we can leave the
| phosphate mixed with the manure
the more thoroughly it will be pre-
pared for plant absorption, not by
being converted into phosphorc
acid, as the fertilizer men claim they
do, so the plant can take 1t up, but
by bacterial action that prepares It
for plant food. l suppose 1t has not
occurred to them to inquire into the
matter Of plants taking up acids
II they had they would find that no
plants take up acids as food. they
will take up alkalies and make them
into acids, sugars, etc. but the only
acid that plants take is carbonic,
which it takes through its leaves
and Celebrates into wood mostly.
think remarked before that the
Creator had made wise provision to
prevent man in his great wisdom or
supposed wisdom from even spoill.g
the earth. One of these provisiona is
to revert strong acids, like phos-
phoric and many utfers, back to
some Of their original combinations
which are not acids, but the ele-
ments that acids are made from.
That part that is not reverted is
carried off in the soil waters. Were
1t not for this wise provision much
larger areas of the earth would now
be barren and non-productive than
nnrr 10 W IL