The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1914-04-23
THE FERTILIZER WHICH
OUR FARMERS BUY.
Figures and Facts About Commercial Plant Food.
An Article That Every Man That
Plants Shoul Read.

Any soil that is to produce pront-
able crops must contain three cheml-
cal substances, potash, phosphorlc
acid and nitrogen. They are necessary
to the life and growth Of plants. Ger
tain soils have them in plenty, but IN
a form that cannot be assimilated by
the plant. Other soils lack one or
more. Some have had them in gen.
erous quantities and in available
form, but have been impoverished
by unwise cropping. Animal and
vegetable manures contain them.
Commercial fertilizers have them in
large quantities and in a supposedly
concentrated and readily available
form.
Many farmers believe commercial
fertilizers are only temporary stlmu-
lants to the soil and actually harm
the land on which they are used.
They do not stimulate the soil in any
way whatever and they injure the
land only indirectly and because OF
their misuse. Naturally vegetable
and animal fertilizers perform exact
ly the same Offices commercial forms
do. but contain less plant food. The
fertilizers produced on the farm,
however, have one great advantage
over commercial forms. Stable
manure carries with it large
amount of organic matter that IN
creases the humus content OF the
soil Commercial fertilizers only fur
nish available plant food. If the COM
mercial forms are persistently used
without the addition of humus MAX
ing material, the soil eventually will
become sour, run together, dry out
quickly and bake hard. That is what
has happened to many of the cotton
and potato lands, of the south.
Fertilizing That is Harmful.
The so-called injury to land by the
use of commercial fertilizers is caus-
ed by the farmer who applies little
fertilizer, without any humus-maklng
material, directly to the roots of a
growing crop. Such food is quickly
consumed and the land, already de-
pleted by unwise cropping, loses still
more of what little natural plant food
it NAV have left. The consequence is,
every year, the land, after the use of
commercial fertilizer alone, is likely
to be a little poorer in fertility and
physical condition than it was the
year before.
Growing plants take enormous
quantities of potash, nitrogen and
phosphoric acid from the soil. Two
hundred bushels Of potatoes, for ex-
ample, maturing on an acre OF land,
will take away from the ground IN
which they grew seventy-ive pounds
! of potash, forty-six pounds of nitro
gen, twenty-one pounds of phosphorlc
acid. That must be returned, or the
land will suffer and finally be ex-
hausted. The sensible, economical
and scientific way to effect the re-
storation of food taken away is by
means of green manuring, with
leguminous crops, such as clover,
eowneas or alfalfa, which are particu-
larly useful in supplying nitrogen,
and the generous use of manure from
farm animals. Commercial fertlll-
zers are expensive, and their one
Office is to feed the plant.
A Don't" in Lining.
Lime OF plaster is the only sub
stance commonly applied by the
farmer that actually stimulates
soil, through sweetening it and pro-
noting the nitrifcation of organic
matter. And lime never should be
mixed directly with farm manures
or with phosphoric acid, as in the
one case it releases before it reaches
the soil valuable fertilizing qualities
of the manure, and in the manure,
and in the other converts the phos-
phoric acid into less available form.
The same applies to wood ashes,
which contain a large per cent of
lime.
The nitrogen, phosphoric acid and
potash in commercial fertilizers come
from various sources and it will be
money in the farmers pocket to
learn something of them. Nitrogen
may be in the form of nitrate of soda,
sulphate of ammonia, tankage, cot
ton seed meal. etc.
Phosphoric acid may be IN the
phosphate of lime found in rocks and
bones; potash in the potash salts and
the ashes in the form of potash. In
commercial fertilizers there are
blended in certain proportions, reck-
oned to be the best suited for certain