The Democratic advocate., 1917-07-13

possibilities or storm or OF the WneaC
lodging are too great to wait longer
than is absolutely necessary before
cutting.
A noticeable thing in the county is
the Weedy meadows. Haying is hard,
hot work but if the crop is of good
quality and quantity it is a pleasure
to all concerned Putting up weeds,
however, is different. Too old mead
ows, too close pasturing, not enough
straw and manure plowed under and
cheap seed are some of the causes for
weedy meadows but preparing the
ground now as for wheat, only better,
and seeding the timothy and clover
the last of August is one of the sur
est ways of having a satisfactory
meadow.
Those who want to seed alfalfa this
fall should keep the ground worked
down from now until about the tWen-
tieth of August SO as to have firm
seed bed and be ordering good Kan
sas or Nebraska seed and if they in
tend to use commercial cultures to in
Oculate should order them in plenty
of time They can be gotten from the
H. K MulfOrd Co., Philadelphia; 0. NJ.
y
from a company or two in Baltimore
and cost dollar an acre. Better re-
suits can be gotten by getting top soil
from a good alfalfa field late in the
evening or on a cloudy day and scat
tering 200 pounds or more to the acre
and narrowing it in.
The Government, the railroads, the
dealers and all interested are urging
farmers to order their fall fertilizers
at once so that the cars can be load
ed to capacity and thus help out with
the car shortage. The most common
wheat fertilizer runs about two or
three per cent. nitrogen, eight to ten
phosphOric acid and two or three per
cent. potash No potash can be had
now so that is eliminated. The purpose
of the nitrogen is to give the wheat a
start in the fall. Wheat is sOWn at least
Il month later than it would be II
there were no such thing as IieSsian
Fly. TO make up for this loss OF time
some soluble nitrogen, generally nj
trate OF soda. is used. European lar
mers SOW broadcast a hundred pounds
or SO of nitrate of soda to the acre in
the early spring to give the wheat a
start. Nitrate Of soda and ammonium
sulphatc are now worth about 500 a
ton and so cannot be prOtitably used.
The nitrogen in mixed fertilizer at
the present time is dried blood, meat
scrap. etc. from the packing houses.
Even the blood which is the best OF
the lot requires considerable time to
become available SO it is a question
whether it would answer the purpose
i- yH-antpI in the
fall unless soWn before the wheat and
whether or not it would not be
washed away by spring SO if | were
buying fertilizer for wheat at the pres
ent time | would use only phos-
phate fertilizer PHOSPHORUS is nee
essary to form grain and hence 1t IS
the most necessary thing for wheat
at any time There are two main
sources of PHOSPHORUS; the rock OF
South Carolina, Tennessee and Flor
ida and the bones Of animals or the
ground bones from the slaughter
houses. The raw rock, even when
ground fine is very slowly soluble. 10
make it more so it is trated with acid
Acid is needed to make explosives
and hence is high so acid rock is also
higher than usual The majority OF
acid rock contains about 16 per cent.
phOsphoric acid. Raw bone is also
very slowly available even when
ground fine so steam bone CORES
ponds to acid phosphate. Good
steamed bone runs about 20 per cent.
phosphOric acid One is about as good
as the other and the one to be used
will depend on the price. Lime is not
necessary for wheat or corn but it
will be good for the clover that is to
follow and it is beneficial to heavy
clay soils. The kind to use depends
on the price. Sc pounds of burned
lime is the equivalent of 20 pounds
of hydrated lime and 100 pounds OF
ground limestone. All will be cal
cium carbonate or ground limestone
within a day or two after put on the
ground. 1t is to be regretted that
there are not number of grinders
in the limestone sections of the coun-
ty from which the farmers could get
ground limestone at a reasonable
price, say $500 a ton. In 1915 the
penitentiary at Laurenceville, Ill,
sold ground limestone at soc ton
loose and 90 in bags, f. 0. b,