The Lynden tribune. [volume] (Lynden, Wash.) 1908-current, 1916-05-04


American farmers are going to school
They are learning that farming Is
manufacturing business; that every gar
den, farm, orchard and ranch Is
chemical laboratory.
The chemists are the agricultural
schoolmasters Of today.
The virgin soil contains certain ele
mcnts which furnish plant food and
grow crops. AS these elements are
taken from the soil by cropping year
after year, its productivity diminishes
and the crops fall Off.
Every intelligent farmer knows now
adays what these vital elements are
and In what proportion they must be
restored to the soil to keep up his crop
yields and make his business pay.
With farmer and manufa6 .urer alike
the present day problem is to secure an
adequate supply of necessary raw ma
terials and labor at prices that will give
him profit on his finished product.
The war; for instance, has shut off
our potash supply from Germany. and
the government experts are almost
Historically seeking to devise processes
for converting seaweed into potash or
making available the immense supply
Of this salt locked up IN the common
rocks of our hills and mountains and
scattered broadcast over the earth,
Earth a Vast Cemetery.
The most important of the plant
foods, though. and the most costly. Is
the nitrogen, which is vital not only to
plant life. but to all forms of life. We
commonly think of oxygen as the life
giving element. but the scientists tell
us that were the supply of nitrogen cut
off the whole of the earth would soon
become vast cemetery.
So lavishly has nature supplied us
with nitrogen that four-fifths Of the
atmosphere is composed of this ele
ment.
AgriculturaIly we must supply nitro
geneous plant food In the form of am
mOnia. Through countless ages very
small part of the nitrogen in the air
has been made into am. ,onia. deposit.
ed In the soil by lightning and other
natural processes. 1t is this tiny de
posit of ammonia or nitrous acid which
gives the virgin soil its plant building
properties. These deposits. however.
are so small that additional means
must be found of changing the form
of air nitrogen and putting back into
the earth the ammonia consumed by
plant life If the soil Is to remain fer
tile.
The processes of animal digestion fix
some part of the nitrogen consumed by
the body in the form of ammonia val
liable as plant food 1t is these proc
esses which give stable manure its
rertilizing qualities.
For many years we brought guano
from Peru and supplied our ammonial
soil needs from the deposits of bird
droppings accumulated there through
countless ages. These Peruvian de
posits are exhausted. and while there
are similar deposits in several parts
OF the earth they are so remote and
inaccessible rs to be practically un
available.
City sewage and garbage waste. very
much Of which Is carelessly drained
into the streams and ocean, contain
valuable fertilizing qualities because of
Its ammonial content. In our desperate
need for heterogeneous fertilizers we are
extravagantly using millions of tons a
year Of cottonseed meal for fertilizer
manufacturing. Because of the high
cost of chemical fertilizers, farmers In
many sections find their use unprofit-
able and are obliged to lose the use of
their land during frequent seasons.
planting 1t In clovers. cowpeas and
other plants Of the small family of
legumes which have the property of
extracting nitrogen from the air, con.
verting 1t into nitrates and leaving
these in the soil In the form of small
nodues or pimples which .orm ON the
roots.
Costly Makeshifts.
These are some of the cumbersome
and costly makcshifts to which farm
ers have been obliged to resort for
plant food. Only three other sources
of nitrogen supply are known. At pres
ent and for many years past the worlds
greatest supply has been saltpeter or