Norwich bulletin., 1921-10-21

An element is a substance which. bv no known means. can be decomposed in- to anything else. Salt, for example. is not an element" for it can be separat- ed into two distinct things, the metal se- dtunl, and the gas chlorine. But neither sodium nor chlorine can be further sep arated. They, therefore, are clements Well, there are some seventy of these
 elements that chemists know and handle. Out of various combinations of these everything we know is made, from ele- plants to angle-wornls, from automobiles to cobblestones, from eabbages to kings. Such things as corn and clover and oo-
 tatoes and wheat and grass and trees
 and weeds are, of course, included
 Every crop the farmer raises is com | posed Of some of these clements in
 widely varying combinations and propor-
 tions. So far as known, about a dozen l or fifteen are chiefly responsible for the
 making of plants. They include nitrogen, l phosphorus, potash, lime, magnesium SO | d1um, iron, sulphur, and several others 1 These elements are all either in the soil l or the air or the water. The plant l which eats with its roots and breathes l with it's leaves, very much as We eat I with our mouths and breathe with our | lungs-takes the different elements it re- 1 quires, as it can find them, and grows l either luxuriantly or feebly, according
 to the amount and character of the ele- | ments available to it. If it finds all 1t | needs, in the proportions 1t calls for,
 and within easy reach, the plant, wheth-
 CT corn or pussley, grows healthfully. If
 1t is stinted in any one of the eIe-
 ments it wants it grows weakly or re- fuses to grow at all.
 Now, all the dozen or fifteen elements 1 needful for plant-growth exist in vary ing proportions in average soils, along
 with more or less of the fifty others
 which are not specially useful to plants
 And every crop of grains or vegetables
 draws on this stock. When you dig a1i sell a hundred bushels of potatoes, you sell, in them, a certain number of pounds
 of nitrogen and phosphorus and potash
 and lime and sodium and magnesium, etc which they've taken out of your soil tc
 make that hundred bushels of potatoes
 One doesn't need to be a scientific gent
 to see that this thing can't be kept UT
 forever. As, year after year, the crop. making food in the soil is used by youl grains and grasses and vegetables, ths total amount is, of course diminished There is never quite as much, every fall, as there was in the spring. The less there is for the erops to grow with the less they'll grow. You know tha from experience. You don't need an, , chemist to tell you what you can see witt your own eyes. It makes no difference tt you how he puts it; you simply say ''The soils worn out" Wherein yourt [ dead right.
 , Worn out soil is worth no more thai 1 1 a worn out tea kettle. So, to proven 5 it's wearing out, to keep it supplied witt . the food the crops want, to make it con :. tinue to produce, you put on manure X You've found, by experience, that lib t eral application of farm manure will hel
 1 amazingly. Crops which aren't worth har ' vesting on unmanured land, turn ou [ much better on manured fields.
 |. Why? Well, you say yourself; "There'
 a reason for all things" There's req
 son why the mature makes your crop n better. It is simply that in the manur e you put back on to your worn out soi = some of the elements which constan g. cropping has withdrawn from it's natura n contents. For the manure contains-i a fact, is largely made up of-those yer = dozen or fifteen clements which tn - crops must have if they are going t
 grow. Your maturing stunt is nothin
 but a return to the soil of some portion d of the element plant-food which previou ]" crops have stolen from it.
 Don't think anybody is going to mak
 fun of you or criticize you for usin manure. Take it all around, it's might 'I good erop-producer. Every farme l. should save it as miser saves pennie: n and should usn it as generously as e spezdthrift scalters dollars. Blessed