Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1916-02-18
INTELLIGENT USE OF FERTl LiZERS IN GERMANY.

l ehC Soiiy HltleS. Sldte OTSdHlIdllOlS
 of all kinds have taken a lively part in ;he building up of the trade, and in lat
 CT years the states have taken it for i granted that the trade is profitable TO l farmers and merchants alike, and
 have therefore framed laws to regu- l late it's manufacture and sale. In every
 state where fertilizer is sold in appre- ciable quantities laws have been 1 passed eXacting certain requirements
 of the manufacturer because farmers who are not able to anaIyZe such ma l terialS for themselves would be the l sufferers. Besides the trade, over-am- | bilious, would forget it's obligation to I the consumer and offer for ;ale in- 1 feriOr material under the name of fer l tilizers. We may say without fear of | successful contradiction that the states l themselves are largely responsible for 1 the rise and volume of the fertilizer 1 trade
 | It has long been recognized that Germany leads the world in many l lines of sCeance. This is perhaps true 1 in regard to the use of fertilizers in
 early years. Germany discovered that l mineral salts applied to growing crops increased the yields immensely, l and gave time and stu0y to the under | lying causes, and has suggested to the 1 other parts of the world many valu- | able lessons on her findings. Von Liebig through his studies and lec- ] lures on modern agriculture has made
 known much of the work of Germany
 in the early history of the use of con- l mercial fertilizers. Liebig says that l Kuhlmann, German agricultural 1 scientist, applied salammoniac to a
 meadow in the year 1S45 and 1S46, and found that on hectare (21a
 acres) he gathered S,140 pounds of | hay more than on the same kind of
 meadow where he did not use the sal
 ammoniac. He secured this result Dy
 using about 200 pounds of sal-am-
 monlac to the acre.
 In commenting upon this Von Liebig
 has the following to say: "1t is quite
 certain. that in the action of the gua-
 no which produced the crop next high. 1
 mistakable part was played by the
 ammonia contained in it. On the
 other hand, however, the experiments
 with carbonate and nitrate of ammonia l show that a quantity of ammonia, or
 nitrogen, equivalent to that in 20 pounds of guano and employed under
 the same conditions, was almost with. | out effect
 1 A little further along he says: "The 1 most recent observations on the com l pertinent of the soil towards the food l of plants show how slight is the 1 knowledge we possess of their mode 1 of nourishment, and of the part which | the soil, by it's physical condition,
 plays in it. The compartment or the ! salts Of ammonia, of chloride of so- l dium. and of nitrate of soda, towards the earthly phosphates in the soil, 1 may perhaps assist ua in throwing
 some light on their action. or one of
 their actions, on the growth of plants" This statement was made because it 1 was always found that when common salt was added to certain mineral ma nures. greater yield was obtained, and Won Liebig cana to the conclusion
 that this was due to the relation of
 of potash in the soils.
 | Only a short time after the war be-
 tween the States the iierman potash
 beds were discovered and by rapid
 leaps and bounds this material gained l in favor with planters as we'll as ex-
 perimenters The necessity for find 1 ing a combination to liberate the pot 1 ash in the soils was now removed
 and thorough satisfaction was found 1 in the use of the nitrate of soda and | the potash -alts. and here the indus l try stood for long time. I4iebig do as 1 claim, however. that Tribasic phosphate l of lime crept into tEa formula and was found efficient This fact is very sig l nificant and happened to be discov- l cred by constant study of the use ot l the nitrate of soda and potash salts.
 Liebig thought that these two plant l food materials had the power of dis 1 solving phosphoric acid in the form ur l pdItuly pIlosplldtCS, eHu llCSe Ill luIu
 added greatly to the yield of farm
 crops,
 We have here many hints of what
 afterwards really developed to be ] facts.-namely that the three great
 clements of plant food that should be
 applied to the soil for good crop yields
 are phosphoric acid. ammonia and l potash, For many years these three
 clements have been the essential cle-
 ments of plant food in fertilizer for , mula.
 Today Germany applies more min
 eral salts per acre to her crops than
 any other nation ill the world, and l partly as consequence gets higher
 yields of farm crops than any other
 nation It is significant that these
 two facts are so closely related. but
 it must be remembered that Germany l has learned the lesson of eood tillaoo