Norwich bulletin., 1916-12-16
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS DISCLOSES A FEW
 THINGS, NOT EVERYTHING

(Written Specially for The Rulletin.) The chemist can take q handful. o1 grain, a hundred grams in weight say. analyza it and tell you exact. how many grams of water andU how many of wood ash and how many o1 every other constituent, t,-potash, nj trates, phosphates, silicates, lime soda. magnesium, iron. sulphur, etc. those hundred grams of corn or cats are made up Of.
 Likewise he can take a handful O, dirt, a hundred grams in weight, say
 analyze it and tell you to the smaliesi
 decimal fraction how many grams oi
 water and how many of organic mat ter and how many Of every mineral
 constituent arc contained in those
 hundred grams of soil.
 We arc not able to do it; nor are
 we able to understand just how he
 does it. It is "all Greek" to us. Bu,
 we know he does it, just as certainly
 as wc know that there arc people tn whom all Creek is their mother tongue; as simple and easily compre-
 hensible as Connecticut English is to
 us. though we find their talk unin-
 telllgibie gibberish.
 Very we'll, then; if this agricultural chemist can find out exactly what a crop takes out of the soil, i e. how
 many pounds of nitrogen, how many
 of phosphorus, how many of potash
 how many of lime, etc., to every 5ush-
 ell of corn; and if ne can find out
 how many pounds of these same eie-
 ments are in the top soil of the acre
 which we're planning to plant to corn,
 next year. why can't he tell US which
 element that crop will find that soil
 short of, next year, so that we can supply the deficiency beforehand and thus insure good crop? Nothing would seem more simple and easy for him.
 He finds. for example. that there are in a ton of shelled corn s pounds of nitrogen, IA pounds of phosphorus, 8 pounds of potash, etc. He also finds that these three chief fertilizins eIc- ments in your soil, instead of being corn, are in the ratio of 36:4 4:6. That is, the proportion of potash is slightly less and that of phosphorus greatly less than is desired by corn. If the other elements such as silicon, iron, soda, lime, carbon, etc, which corn contains in small quantities, your soil IS SC full that there's no need of any more. But it is evident that the said soil is somewhat short of potash and very deficient in phosphorus as meas ured by corn demand. What more logical, at first thought, than to as- a ash ;;nd good deal of phosphate to your field will enable the soil, already rieh enough in nitrogen, iron, lime, silicon, etc. to grow a whopp;ng croT, of corn?
 Nothing would seem more ioaicaf and natural. Nevertheless, the theory don't and won't and can't te made to work out, in practice. Perhaps it ought to work. But most certainly it does not work
 According, to recent bulletin of the New York Agricultural Experi- mens station a great many farmers want measurements of the fertility of their soils. so that they may deter mine for any given soil it's capacity to sustain plant production and it's deficiencies that should be met through the application of fertilizing material" NO request, the bulletin states. is more often made of the station than 10 nave sample of soil analyzed in order to determine what fertilizer should De used to supplement- its weak places, and to what crop or crops 1t Is adapted There seems. the buIle- in goes on, to be a wide impression that mere laboratory methods can settle Just what procedure should be adopted to increase the crop-produc- hs power or a given field" This inn oression persists though scientific men have over and over again stated frankly and emphaticaiy that,-now please note this,-
 No methods of analysis are now known which will give such rneas,Ire- nents Of fertility as will afford a safe oasis for practice"
 That IS, the thing which, theoreti, ally. ought to be as simple as rolling ,n log isn't really simple at all, but s a profound mystery, thus far ntt erly unsolvable by test tube and mi ;rometer balance.
 The thing which one might think snt.
 Analyses of whats in the soil and what's in the crop don't seem to havs