The Carlisle independent., 1918-07-11
SOIL. FERTILITY EITHER
 BORROWED OR STOLEN
lt Must Be Replaced Sometime

There's aeertaiE amount of fertility in your sojl. If you take some out, you should replace it, just as YOU would return borrowed money. If you don't pay back what you borrow. YOU are practically stealing. Ii you don't repay your friend after the first time you borrow, you are not likely to get much Of 8 loan the second time, and when it comes to 8 bank, if you don't pay yoUr obligations there-well, you will hazfs t0 some way. In tho matter of fertility, the trouble is that our soil Is too good friend. We can borrow, borrow, borrow-not getting so much each time, of cour5e-until we finally conclude there is not much more to get from our friend and we are at liberty to move away, if we want, and cultivate another friendship.
 This, at least, used to be the case, but there is practically no more virgin land and what we have will have to be taken care of.
 Reaching Emit of Fertility Few of US realize how very little fertility in proportion to the whole bulk of the soil there really is. In 6 ton of ordinary black clay loam. there are only 311s pounds of nitrogen, 3s1
 pounds Of phosphorus, and 50 pounds of potash. When these are exhausted, they are gone, that's all.
 The best and cheapest general pur- pose fertilizer and the one that con- tains the three clements above men, tioned is barnyard manure. A ton of 1t contains , pounds of nitrogen, 317s pounds Of phoSphorouS and 9 much larger quantity of potash. It is worth at present. prices for commercial fer tilizerS about S. 50 8 ton, according to Pennsylvania Experiment. Station Circular No. 67.
 $500 Worth of Manure on Average Farm Supposing you have the average number of stock on tho average farm -6 COWS, horses and 10 hogs. These will, according to U. s. Farmers Bul- letin 192, produce about Ii0 tons of manure per year. At S5.50 per ton. those no tons will have 3 total value of about $500.
 How much will you ge6 in re6urr; for that amount of manure? That all depends on how you handle it. Director c. ;. Thorn Of tI1o Ohio Experiment. Station says that eight loads put on with a spreader arc worth as much as twelve put on sby hand. This means loss of one-third of tho above amount about s200 if the ma- nure is spread by hand. It is hard to realize that the unevenness of hand spreading would make that much diff. ference in comparison with eTen machine spreading. A good sgreader doesn't cost near as much as that loss of S20o.
 Advantages of Wide Spread S..readere
 In buying 8 spreader at the present time the farmer should see that he selects one with wiGe spread attach
 nent. With such an attachment 6 strip feet wide or better can be cov- cred, extending well outside the wheels on both sides. This has positive adyan- | tages over the narrow spread spreadef of years ago. In the first place, the load l is thrown of twice as fast and the same amount of ground iscoyered with just half the driving distance, and on the 1 return 1t is not necessary to drive so l that the wheel tracks lap in order that all ground may receive an even spread. For practically the same price today g. | wide spread Spreader can be bought l that will deliver more in service anG includes more in quality of construc- tion than an old type machine that only spreads the width of the beater. For these reasons the wide spread ma- chine should be thoroughly investi- gated before 8 farmer invests his money in spreader.
 A spreader is the most necessary 1 implement on the farm today. It is 3 crop producer, whereas most other ma- 1 chimes are only crop handlers. It en- co,irages the saving of manure and | thereby makes the farmer honest with his soil. He borrows his fertility and does1't steal it,