| regents : PUA RIA. THE PRACTICAL ‘FARMER, LIBRARY , ISSUED QUARTERLY. : ‘vot. 3.% JULY 1901. NO. 3. ‘PRICE.5O CENTS | ms Cora APES SELAE ei a re nn ge tr ey nt er PUBLISHED BY THE FARMER COMPANY MARKET & 18™ STREETS PHILADELPHIA A COMPLETE AGRICULTURAL LIBRARY THE PRACTICAL FARMER'S LIBRARY PUBLISHED QUARTERLY JULY 1ST, OCTOBER IST. JANUARY IST, APRIL-IST, SUBSCRIPTION PRICE $2.00 PER YEAR POSTPAID The Practical Farmer’s Library is a new departure along new lines in agricul- tural journalism. Started January tst, 1899, itinstantly sprang into popularity. Its plan, briefly, is a Year Book and Agricultural Almanac, published January 1st of each year, followed by three other numbers during the year, especially pre- pared for the farmer and his family for their daily use and reference. The size and shape of the numbers are handy for prese.vation and a complete alphabetical index in each volume puts the contents of each at the reader’s finger ends. The practical and useful character of the Library is well illustrated by this number. It is gotten up along the lines which practical experience has indicated, will best serve the daily needs of the soil tiller. The four numbers of the year give a mass of information which cannot be found in any other publication, and in just the shape where it is most readliy assimilable by the reader. THE FARMER CO., PUBLISHERS, PHILADELPHIA @ae™ We will send the Practical Farmer’s Library and the Practical Farmer both one year for only $2.00. (SEE THE THIRD COVER PAGE.) j ; Ms, ‘ ~ CROP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING A BOOK FOR THE FARM, GARDEN AND ORCHARD | Y With Special Reference to the Practical Methods of Using Commercial Fertilizers Therein. e 2 e & % ® »® 22, eon a ® «6 BY W. F. MASSEY Member of the National Geographic Society, Vice President of the North Carolina Horticultural Society, Professor of Horticulture and Vegetable Biology, North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, Raleigh, N. C. JULY, 1905 ‘to. 3. Vol. 3. THE PRACTICAL FARMERS’ LIBRARY, Published Quarterly by The Farmer Company Philadelphia. Subscription, $2.00 per Year. Single Copies, 50 Cents THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Two Copies REcEiveD AUG. 2 1901 CoPyYRIGHT ENTRY F Why ot CLASS &XXc. Ne. 110948 COPY B. Entered according to Act of Congress in 1901, by THE FarM pe Cor, ate ae Sie ae ir ee @ e ° in the Library of Congres®at-Waskingfdny It 6. e . ee ee e eee e ete e eee ef ete e .¢ ee Vatices, ee teee, esses e.° ees cosigae ge et ares ‘i Entered as second-class matter at post office Philadelphia. PREFACE. This book is the result of an effort to put into the plain language of the farm the facts which scientists have worked out in the laboratory, and which practical experience has proved to be applicable to the every day work of the farm. It is written for men who know nothing of chemistry, but who are anxious to learn something of the chemical combinations that are of value in the feeding of crops, and the best way to use them in the permanent improvement of their soil. For men who know nothing of the mysteries of plant life, but who are anxious to learn how plants live, grow and perform all their work in soil and air, so that they may be better able to comprehend their needs, and supply them in a rational manner. While endeavoring to make the book scientifically accurate in all its statements I have tried to avoid all pedantry, but to make the whole so plain that the “way- faring man, though a fool, need not err.” I have undertaken the work with a good deal of misgiving as to what should be its exact position on some of the problems in nature as yet not fully solved, and about which there is much yet to be learned by the wisest minds. When such problems are attempted, I will candidly say that I do not as yet fully comprehend the processes involved, I will give the results so far as they are known. The acquirement of nitrogen by leguminous plants is one of the problems that has not yet been fully worked out, and while we know that they do get the nitrogen through the agency of minute organisms that live with them on their roots, the exact process by which these microscopic forms get the nitrogen is not yet fully understood. But for our purpose it is enough to know that they do get it and store it in the roots and soil for the future crop. N. C. College of A. & M. A,, Raleigh, N. C. (5) TABLE OF CONTENTS 12 TiC ey GREP a tt ani, eh ot al ied na yore rhe ee. A SE ae i ae ben eg 5 dmerodmie tion: 4 crisis ded oe BE tee. re Bete eae ae aah tc Wee eae: Sere 11-16 Crapren To The Arr ont Vee Buns Alone 1toud Cea k ate ee eee tte 17 How green leaved plants get food from the air.—How plants get food from the soil.—The course of the soil-water in the plant. GHaprer [The Growth Of sagseed... “cc... onic ee ee eee 24 The flower.—The fruit. CEesprER Wh IT: — Blames Breeding’ pie gise scent casins ae eect ra ieee is > 28 Improving the cotton plant.—cotton breeding. CeAPPrER. J V—— he sS0nl 0. see ose cee cane ie ey eee ane ee, 40 Living soils and dead soils.—How to determine what the soil needs. CHuAPpren ‘V.—Plant Hoodie. se. . ose ee eee ae ee emi ce 46 CuHapTerR VI.—Sources of Fertilizing Materials..................... 48 Sources of nitrogen.—Barnyard and stable manures.—No need for buying nitrogen.—Leguminous plants the true source of nitrogen for the farmer. Cuapter VIT.—Phosphorus, Its Sources and Use in Plant Feeding..... 61 Bone meal as a source of phosphoric acid.—Thomas slag, slag meal, basic slag as a source of phosphoric acid.—Marls as a source of phos- phoric acid.—Phosphatic guano.—The great phosphate rock deposits. ~—Some erroneous popular names.—The value of insoluble phasphates. (6) CoNTENTS Y DeREEE AN elle = PLAS 4 oa 5 cclala ovate naan SOME awed LA A SET 70 Potash as essential plant food.—Soils which need potash most.— What is the best form of potash?—Crude potash salts.—Manufac- tured potash salts——Capacity of the soil for absorbing potash.— Dangers from potash.—Potash in waste products.—Cotton seed hull ashes.—Green sand marl. SeeeTER .X.— Lime-and Liming” Land . 0. «.,6.:060.5 oe0ls aera ire cise sisie « 77 Sulphate of lime from plaster.—Gas house lime.—Sulphate of lime as a waste product.—Agricultural salt.—Shell marls.—Tan bark ashes. —Swamp muck or peat. CHAPTER X.—Mixing Fertilizers on the Farm................--.-06- 85 How to mix fertilizers. CHapter XI.—The Maintenance of Fertility....................... 94 Using fertilizers in continuous cropping.—Why a short rotation is best.—Some of the mistakes made. Cuaprer XII.—How to Use Commercial Fertilizers for the Maintenance RTM OTAMLTL Vis 210 «Fi rete 6.5: axe eh teeth th 3h 0-0 rege Re 102 The rotation for the cotton crop.—What is the best rotation for cot- ton?—Curing the pea vine hay.—Resting the land.—Another cotton rotation. CuHaprer XIII.—Where Winter Wheat is the Money Crop............ 120 Rotations for the winter wheat crop.—Fertilizers for wheat.—What a crop of wheat removes from the soil.—Thorough preparation of the soil as important as fertilizers for wheat.—Green manuring for wheat. —Wheat after a hoed crop. CHAPTER XIV.—Fertilizers for the Permanent Pasture.............. 133 Grasses for permanent pasture. CHAPTER X V.—Fertilizers Where Hay is the Money Crop........... 137 Farming for hay. CuHaprer XVI.—Where Tobacco is the Money Crop............-.---- 141 Forms of fertilizers for tobacco. Cuaprer XVII.—Fertilizers for the Corn Crop.................04. 146 How shall we utilize the corn crop as a food crop?—The silo and en- silage—Making the ensilage-—The feeding value of ensilage.—Ma- nure from ensilage feeding.—Shredding the fodder from corn crop. CHaprer XVIII.—Testing the Needs of the Soil.................-. 154 8 CONTENTS “Be ar ee OM ees Fei 1c): ee tA, Oo (Oy A a Culture of frame lettuce in the South.—Lettuce in the open ground. —The manurial requirements of lettuce.—Varieties of lettuce. Carrer Xx \ 111 Melons... cass + cece Oey Te ate oe, na ss Muskmelons.—Watermelons. QAP TERY SONNY (OOS 5h Seah RN eng ee ae ee cueing Growing the sets.—Early green onions in the South.—The general crop of onions.—Varieties for keeping.—Another method of growing onions.—Fertilizers for the onion crop. CHAPTER XXX V.— hin ish, ior Garden, “Peds... a, sein a scl. c op + CrAarree XX XV 1.—irish Potaotegad. 25: dceesatas ath oak Ros ok «2s os Soils for the potato crop.—Manurial requirements of the potato.— Potatoes as a field crop in the North.—Cultivation.—Early potatoes in the South.—Fertilizing the Southern early crop.—Growing seed potatoes in the South. Potatoes in the home garden.—Varieties of potatoes.—Do potatoes run out?—Some Station investigations of Potato culture and manuring. CHAPTER eX Xe VL —_Sweet iBObahoesix geveiiania tere ee eee cia ott Manuring for the sweet potato crop.—Growing the plants.—Cultiva- tion of the sweet potato.—Planting the late crop in the South.—Har- vesting sweet potatoes—Keeping sweet potatoes in winter.—Con- struction of a potato house.—Sweet potatoes North and South.—Varie- ties of the sweet potatoes.—Evaporating sweet potatoes.—Yields of Sweet potatoes from large and small tubers. CHAPTER XX...V.UI——Momatoes. ..+... 2c. Sa Ak ae sees 6's LAERANEE ce: Growing the plants.—Fertilizing the tomato crop.—The field crop of tomatoes.—Southern blight.—Varieties of tomatoes.—Forcing tomatoes in winter.—Shall tomatoes be pruned in the open ground.—The forcing house for tomatoes.—Commercial fertilizers in tomato forcing.—Further reports on chemical fertilizers in forcing tomatoes. CHarreR XXXIX.—Some Special Formulas for Truck Crops... .. For celery.—For Irish potatoes.—For beets and lettuce.—For cab bages, cauliflowers, cucumbers and melons.—For spinach.—*or radishes and turnips.—For asparagus.—For egg plants and temutoes. —For onions.—For sweet potatoes.—For beans and peas. CnHapreR XL.—Some Station Investigations of Fertilizers........... Rhode Island potato formulas.—Proposed formula for onions.—Rhode Island formula for general purposes.—A compost with hen manure.— Formula for corn on a sandy soil.—Formula for mijlet and Hun- garian.—Formula for barley.—Formula for spinach, lettuce, ete.— Chemical action of lime.—Bio-chemical effects or lime—When to apply lime.—Improvement of worn lands. 228 264 eel > 284 CoNTENTS 9 Craprer XIX.—The Restoration: ore WornvOut Lande.) .0.0 25 ae528 158 CHapter XX.—How Legumes Help the Farmer................... 164 Nitrification in general.—Taking free nitrogen from the air through plant growth.—Nitrification of organic matter in soils.—Conditions essential to the formation of nitrates in the soil.—Nitrification and its products.—Nitrates are easily drained from the soil.—Crops which prevent loss of nitrogen.—Nitrogen fixing crops and their place in a rotation. CHapter XXI.—The Best Leguminous Plants..................... 168 Red clover.—The place for clover in a rotation—Crimson clover.— Cow peas.—Vetches.—Burr clover.—The soy bean.—The velvet bean. —The peanut.—Varieties of the peanut.—Alfalfa.—Forage plants not leguminous.—Millets.—Teosinte.—Kaffir corn. e eemen N “Some? Minor Crops 00 i 2 o.oo ieee eso 185 Oats.—Soiling crops.—Crops for hogs to gather. CuHaprer X XIIT.—Commercial Fertilizers and the Market Garden.....193 Complete fertilizers essential to the garden crops—Home mixing essential to the market gardener. eee Vi — TAM G3 lke Sal 1b cyl det E ovens wheelie ae as 196 Growing the plants.—Preparing for the permanent plantation. Paartnr XX V—Beans im the Market Garden.......026es.0s.5. 06% 200 Lima beans.—Forcing snap beans. BeerrUS PNY Wi Wa WAGER. iI) o 2 tac, PELs eae te Ws oe lee id os Tee 203 Succession, or summer cabbages.—Late cabbages.—Late cabbages in the South. eer nnn ee Lr Cauhi flower itl ui eh eels ie U.S 208 Early cauliflowers in the South—Cauliflower seed and varieties. emer ere“ Oorni se. oe eR, SE. LUE aT ies Pala nme I OClCLY hi oes ole ches ce ors cc een saee ened awssls 213 Methods of culture.—Other methods of blanching celery.—Fertilizers for the celery crop.—Varieties of celery. eee eee CIIMDEIS «iow fv ca ho Ooo d ood owns wv ean eeiians 218 Varieties of cucumbers.—Fertilizers for the cucumber crop.—Starting cucumbers under glass to advance them. A Empie le ee — Om PLANS. tiene wiape es iets Vane seasensecees 221 Varieties of egg plants—Fertilization. 10 CONTENTS CHaprer XLI.—Frauds in Fertilizers....... Senet BEEP ey cline o arose ral ster 298 The man with a secret. CuaaptER XLIJ.—The Strawberry as a Field Crop............- Sia. (O00 Manurial requirements of the strawberry.—Fertilizer formula for the strawberry.—Forcing the strawberry. Ciaprer XLIITI.—Blackberries and Raspberries..... Reems. cages 2 310 Blackberries and raspberries.—Manurial needs of black and raspber- ries.—Propagating the plants. CuHapTer XLIV.—Fertilizers in the Vineyard and Orchard........... 313 Feeding the apple orchard.—Planting an apple orchard.—Starting the trees.—Cultivating and cropping the orchard.—Analysis of the apple tree and its products. Cri OX Ves Mhenk cars. (ite acre ere cc. Reni eretn 2 cnt. aa ORO Feeding the pear. CHaprir: XLV 1.—Peaches, ‘Plums. and. Cherries.4....'4... 5.400%. ose. 325 Planting a peach orchard.—Feeding the peach.—The plum.—Cherries. Grreaprers X DV EL Phe (Grapes... cu ee Sect c eer See caer e 333 Propagation of the grape. CHAPTER Xb VibEL—=Gardenime, Under VGlask. «json eer pistcinein eee = ® 336 Winter lettuce.—Lettuce in cold frames.—Making the frames.—Soil and planting.—Cauliflower and lettuce combined.—Radishes and beets in frames.—Cold frame culture in more northern sections.—Frame culture of winter flowers in frames.—Frames for the commercial florist in the South.—Propagating tender roses in the South.—Prop- agating hardy roses in frames North.—Asparagus in cold frames.— Strawberries in frames.—Importance of water in intensive garden- ing.—Hotbeds.—The forcing house. CRAPTER XOX —=Somen Generale Gonciisionsameiaens eer te 362 Js\)0) 012% 6 hb Sa en REPRISES kine. ro, oS eee Gv ue . 373 Useful tables.—Constituents of forage plants per acre.—Ashes.— Percentage of the availability of the different forms of nitrogen.— What crops remove from the soil.—Analysis of the fertilizer and fertilizer materials—Amount and value of manure produced by dif- ferent farm animals.—Food constituents of different parts of the peanut plant. INTRODUCTION. The only excuse I have to offer for the manner in which this book presents the subject of crop growing and crop feeding, is the fact that there is so much of ignorance, even among men nominally educated, in regard to the vital processes in plant life. I meet men daily, who have taken college degrees and are in professional life, who still think that the sap rises in the trees in the spring and runs down in the fall; that is about all they know of plant life, and even that little is not true. They have never studied plant life in an intelligent manner, for in all of the old college curriculums botany has been rigorously ignored, or even if attempted, it was only a little spring time study and a brief effort to learn the scientific names by which the plants are called; the main effort was merely to do this, and the result was that the student knew no more about the wonderful life of the plants around him than he did before. Hence educated men, or rather men crammed with the information of the books, fall into all sorts of errors and believe all sorts of old wives’ fables about plants. A very intelligent gentleman who is interested in some phosphatic rock mines in this State, told me once that the rock they mined was more soluble than ordinary phosphatic rock because of the heavy forest growth above the deposit, for the sap running out from the roots of the trees in the fall had a solvent effect on the rock below. This man has traveled all over Europe and America, and has a large fund of general infor- mation,and no argument I could use would convince him that no sap runs from the trees in the fall. Late one fall a few years ago a reader of one of our city papers wrote an inquiry to the editor, saying that he had noticed that just before a rain the springs and brooks had swelled, and he wanted to know the reason. The editor, a college bred man, told him that the explanation was perfectly simple, as at that season the sap was running out of the tree roots and raised the springs. He never seemed to think of the real reason, the release of atmospheric pressure just before a rain. I wrote to the paper and told him that there was no such thing as sap running out of the roots of the trees, and entered into some explanation of the processes of plant life. It was amusing after my letter was published, to note the surprise with which it was received. Educated men stopped me on the street and asked if it was really true that the sap does not run out of the roots, and that all plants get the larger part of their fabric from the air and not from the soil. (11) 12 INTRODUCTION. This same general ignorance in regard to plant life is the cause of so many otherwise intelligent men believing that one plant can be suddenly transformed into an entirely different one. That wheat will change to chess or cheat. Men who have studied the life history of vegetation know the utter absurdity of this notion, but it is so firmly fixed in the minds of many intelligent men that it is perfectly useless to argue with them. They have never been taught accuracy of observation in their youth, and hence jump to conclusions that are not warranted by the facts. Some months ago a farmer iin this State wrote me a letter, asking if there was any premium offered by the Agricultural Department of the State for the positive proof that wheat would turn to cheat. I answered that there was no such offer, and I knew there was no such proof. A friend of mine, a leading lawyer of the writer’s neighborhood, then wrote to me that I had treated his friend rather curtly, for he knew that he had the positive proof, and he would send it to me. Accordingly a few days after I received a package containing a well grown plant of cheat with numerous wheat grains adhering to the tips of the rootlets. I wrote to the lawyer that if this was what he called proof, he would have to learn to sift evidence better or his reputation as a lawyer would suffer. The fact that dead wheat grains were attached to the feeding tips of the rootlets of the cheat, was simply proof that the wheat decayed and the roots of the cheat found the grains and were feeding on them. If the cheat had really germinated from the wheat, the grains would never have been found on the place where the absorptive root hairs were foraging for food, but would have been right up where they started from, and that what he regarded as positive proof of the transformation of wheat into cheat was, on the other hand, a positive proof that no such change had taken place, for the roots were simply seeking food, and the weather con- ditions that killed the wheat were just the kind that were favorable to the development of the hardy cheat, which never winter kills. It is with the hope that a study in a simple manner of some of the processes of plant life will help to banish superstitions, and will be the means of some of our readers getting a better understanding of the reasons that underlie the culture of our crops, and the sup- plying of them with food. We have made the effort to avoid, as far as possible, language that might confuse the unlearned, and to clothe facts in the every day language of the farm so far as possible. It will be noticed that we state that 95 per cent. or more of every plant comes from the air, and not from the soil, and we endeavor to explain how the plant gets the material from the air. But to see in a practical way how much of a plant comes from the air, take a good sized corn stalk and weigh it. Now cut it up and dry it thoroughly. Not merely air-dry, but dry it as a chemist would dry it in his dry bath. Now weigh it again, and you find that it contained a great deal of water. Now burn it carefully and completely, till you have only white ashes left. You will find that these weigh but a trifle as compared with the great corn plant. And yet that little handful of ashes contains all the plant got from the soil except the nitrogen, and that the soil originally got from the air. The mineral matters, or ash elements, are what you have left in the ashes. The rest was carbon and water, and it has gone off in the shape in which the plant originally got it, as carbonic acid, to feed other plants and make other structures, for there is no destruction in nature. The same old materials are being used over and over INTRODUCTION. 13 again, perpetually building up new forms. In regard to the nature of commercial fertilizers, there is a general notion among farmers that they are mere stimulants, and that while they can be used to increase crops, their final effect is to exhaust the soil. The injudicious way in which commercial fertilizers have been used in the Eastern Middle States, and in the Southern States, has led to this opinion. Used as they have been in the past by the cotton and tobacco growers of the South, they have been a curse to the country, and have led to poverty of soil and poverty to the farmer. But this is not the fault of the commercial fertilizer, for well prepared fer- tilizers are simply plant food, such as we find in any manure; and if properly used for the improvement of the soil, they can be made the means of restoring and maintaining the fertility of our lands more efficiently and cheaply than in any other manner. The only classes of substances used as applications to the soil to which the term stimulant can be properly applied are lime and plaster. These are used not so much for their value as plant food, but for their effects in ren- dering other matters, notably potash, available in the soil. They thus stimulate the soil to give up to plants matters it already has, and thus gradually tend to the exhaustion of these things if carelessly used, with the notion that lime and plaster will make land rich because we see a good effect from their application. There are extensive districts in the North, where once the farmers got large crops from the use of plaster alone, and imagining that plaster was all they needed, they kept on in its application, and now find that there is nothing more for the plaster to give them and are compelled to use commercial fertilizers liberally. Had they known more of the real work the plaster was doing for them they could have avoided the gradual exhaustion of the mineral elements in their soil. But there are some writers who would persuade the farmer that in the use of com- mercial fertilizers alone they have all that is needed, and that land can be kept perennially fertile simply by giving every crop a liberal application of a complete fertilizer. They beg us, when we urge the farmer to adopt a good rotation of crops in which the legumes are brought frequently to accumulate humus in the soil, to “give humus a rest,” insisting that humus is not plant food, and that crops can be grown as well without it as with it. It may be that in a season of very favorable weather and abundance of moisture in the soil, the commercial fertilizers will have their best effects, even if there is no humus or vegetable decay present. But in a season like the one we have just passed through, we have found in late October, in a soil deficient in humus, all the fertilizer applied in the furrow, as dry as it was when applied. Not two hundred feet away was land in which the humus content was much greater, and here the plants had gotten the dissolved plant food, because of the superior mosture-retaining nature of the decayed vegetable matter. Therefore, even if this decay furnished us no nitrogen, it would still be valuable for its mechanical effects in making the soil mellow, and in its power of retaining moisture for the plants. What we try to impress upon our readers in this book, above all else, is the fact that the true use of the commercial fertilizer is the main- tenance and increase of the fertility and productiveness of the soil, and not so much for the immediate returns in sale crops. True farming does not consist in the dosing of the soil for every crop with a prescription some land doctor advises as a specific for that crop, but in so using these valuable plant foods in the 14 INTRODUCTION. improvement of the soil that there will be no need in any of our ordinary farm cropping for the use of what is called a complete fertilizer at any time, and seldom any need for an application directly to the sale crop. Used in this way, there is no doubt that the fertility of the soil can be restored and maintained more cheaply and more rapidly by the use of commercial fertilizers than in any other way, though no farmer should wholly ignore the foundation of all rational farm improvement, the keeping and feeding of live stock.in the best manner, and the making and saving in the most careful manner all the domestic manures. The deplorable condition of much of the cotton land in the ‘South is due, not only to the injudicious use of commercial fertilizers as a means of getting sale crops, but to the entire abandonment of stock feeding by the cotton farmers. The annual cultivation of the soil in the one clean cultivated crop has used up the humus and none goes there, because there are no animals fed to make manure and no renovat- ing crops between the cotton crops, and when a dry season comes, the fertilizers applied are not dissolved and the crops are poor. The season of 1900 was remark- able as the hottest and dryest on record in the South Atlantic States, and the lands without fertilizer did as well or better than those directly fertilized. But recently, meeting Eble whom I knew was farming in a short rotation with legumes, I asked him about his cotton crop. “I expected to get 40 bales on 35 acres. The drought has affected me some, and I will have hardly more than 35 bales.” All around this man’s farm there are those who will hardly get a bale on five acres, and they spent more for fertilizers on their crop than he did, who gets a bale permacre. It is, therefore, with the earnest hope that we can induce farmers North and South, to understand the true use of commercial fertilizers that this book has been prepared. We have written it from the standpoint of the practical farmer, and have prepared it for practical farmers. While living in the South, a native of the South, and striving with all my energy to aid in the building up of the agricultural and horticultural interests of the southern cultivators of the soil, the writer has had a wide experience in the growing of plants and crops in various sections, and has traveled and studied the practices of growers in all parts of the country. He therefore feels that he is prepared : help farmers in various sections, and to contribute something, at least, to the general advancement. The great interest that has been awakened in regard to agricultural education is well shown by the great increase of books on agricultural topics. Formerly the effort was to treat of the whole subject of agri- culture and farm economy in a single small volume, and our libraries still contain some of those little books. In the organization of our Colleges of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts the greatest difficulty that beset the faculty in these institutions was the total absence of books on agriculture and horticulture that could be used as text books with the college classes. The result was that every professor was compelled to prepare his own lectures and to conduct the instruction along lines devised from time to time to meet the emergency. Out of this work there have grown up books in which various parts of scientific cropping are treated, and there is no longer any effort made to combine in one small volume all the matters that relate to cropping, stock breeding and feeding, farm drainage and soil manipula- tion; but the soil and its treatment and cropping have come to be considered as something separate and distinct from the animal husbandry of the farm. While INTRODUCTION. 15 in a work of this kind methods of soil preparation and culture are of necessity treated, to some extent, the chief aim of the book will be to make plain so far as has been ascertained, the methods of supplying the manurial needs of crops, and especially to endeavor to do something towards encouraging a more judicious use of the commercial fertilizers than is common among farmers. Few northern farmers fully realize to what extent the southern farmer has come to rely upon commercial fertilizers for every crop he plants. And it is important that in the interest that is now being taken in the Central West in the use of commercial fertilizers, that the farmers be protected from making the mistakes that have proved disastrous to the southern farmer, and that they should be taught in the beginning of their use of these fertilizers, where and how they may be made profitable, and how to avoid the dangers of soil wasting that have followed hard upon the use of commercial fertilizers in the cotton states. The poorest farmers and the best farmers use commercial fertilizers. The first-class dribbles them in small quantity under his sale crop, solely for the purpose of getting a little more to sell; the second class uses them in a far more liberal manner for the pur- pose of building up the soil and the development of its natural capacity. The first class of farmers simply use enough to add a little to what the land would do unaided, and thus get what the soil would do and all that the fertilizer did, and the result is that the soil is in a worse condition by reason of the application; and it is no wonder that the men who use these forms of plant food in this way have come to the conclusion that they are only stimulants. The greatest educational influence of late years among farmers who have passed the years when they could have attended a college, has been the Farmers’ Institutes. When these Institutes were first inaugaurated farmers as a class knew little about the chemistry of the fertilizers they used, and regarded that the best which smelled the worst. Since the Institutes and the Grange have been getting in their work there has been a wonderful change in this respect, and the farmer who does not know something about the chemical composition of the fertilizers he uses, and the nature of the elements entering into them, is as rare as one who did know these things was at one time. These educational influences have also brought about a change in other respects. Farmers, as a class, have now a greater respect for what they formerly ridiculed as “book farming,’ and today it is only the grossly ignorant among the farmers who fail to realize what scientific study and investi- gation have done for the farmer. Another educational influence that has been brought to bear upon the farmer is the Agricultural Experiment Station. The whole modern system of spraying for the prevention of fungous diseases in plants and to ward off the attacks of noxious insects, has been brought about through the work of the Experiment Stations, and on no subject of interest to the farmer have the Stations devoted more attention than to the study of the various forms of plant food sold as fertilizers, their composition and value. Before the inauguration of these Stations the farmer was at the mercy of the compounder of fertilizers, and had no means for ascertaining their real value. With the in- auguration of the Experiment Stations and their analyses of these mixtures came the passage of stricter laws regulating the sale of fertilizers and protecting not only the farmer, but the honest fertilizer manufacturer, from the frauds that were formerly so common. The result of all these influences is that farmers who 16 INTRODUCTION. never had the advantages of a scientific training have been taught to understand what is necessary in a good fertilizer, and are rapidly learning that they can make these mixtures themselves as easily as to buy them ready mixed, and can save money in so doing. Then, too, the result of the publication of the analyses of commercial fertilizers has had the effect of driving from the market inferior articles and of improving the general standard of the factory-made fertilizers, and in States having a good and well enforced fertilizer control, the farmers are now protected from rogues, and the honest manufacturers are not compelled to compete with them. We have urged the home mixing of fertilizers upon our farmers, not from any antagonism to the manufacturers of fertilizers, but because we know that in the thoughtless purchase of ready mixed articles, growers are continually buying what they do not need to buy, and getting mixtures poorly adapted to their soil and crops, though they may be manufactured with perfect accuracy and honesty. No one mixture will suit all parts of the same farm, or all the crops grown upon it, and the farmer will thus be compelled to buy various brands in order to get what he needs. But if he buys the materials and mixes them to suit his soils and crops he can buy the whole in larger quantity and at a lower price. The fact has more than once been demonstrated at the Experi- ment Stations, that one may buy at retail the various materials that enter into a commercial fertilizer, and save money from the price he would have to pay for factory mixed goods. This book, being written by a farmer, for the benefit of farmers, will advocate what its author believes to be the best interest of the farmer. without regard to what others may think of what we write. It will, as I have said, treat the subject of cropping and feeding crops from the standpoint of the practical farmer in full sympathy with the work of scientific investigation. Having been more or less connected with the practical carrying out of Station investigations in agriculture and horticulture, since the foundation of the Experi- ment Stations, the author of this book has had exceptional opportunities for study and observation; and these apportunities, added to his long experience as a practical cultivator of the soil in farm, garden and greenhouse, enables him to write with some confidence for the benefit of those who, like him, are endeavoring to win bread from the soil. The original design was simply to make the work a reference book on the use of fertilizers for the general farmer. But it is difficult to write of the use of fertilizers without going somewhat into details of cultural methods; and then, too, the market gardener, the orchardist, the florist and the winter forcer of products under glass, are all interested in the use of commercial fertilizers. Hence the idea of the work has grown so as to include some of the work of each, and our hope is that all will find it a valuable book of reference. So far as the garden crops and the work under glass are concerned, special attention is paid to the needs of the market gardeners of the South Atlantie and Southern States, since the work of the gardener in the North will be more fully discussed by those actually engaged in the business there. CHAPTER I. THE AIR. All plants and animals pass their lives at the bottom of the great ocean of air that surrounds the earth. From this air plants derive by far the greater part of their substance. Pure air is a mixture of two invisible gases, nitrogen and oxygen. The nitrogen is for the purpose of diluting the oxygen so that animals can breathe it. But the two gases are not combined with each other. ‘The nitrogen is called free nitrogen because it is perfectly free from any combination with other elements, but in order that plants can use it it must become so combined. But of this later. We have said that plants derive the greater part of their substance from the air. In fact about 95 per cent. of every plant comes from the air, or to speak more correctly, from matters that exist as an impurity in the air. For while pure air is composed of the two gases mentioned, there are always more or less of other gases in it, not as essential parts of the air for animal life, but as impurities and detri- mental to animals. But with plants the case is very different. One of the impurities in the air is the gas called, commonly, carbonic acid, and which is known to the chemist as carbon-di-oxide; that is, it consists of two parts of oxygen associated and combined with one part of carbon. This carbon- -di-oxide is the gas that accumulates in old wells and mines and makes what is called choke damp, so deadly to animal life. But there is always a minute portion of it in the air everywhere, and while an excess is damaging to animal life a small portion is essential to the welfare of all plants that make green leaves. HOW GREEN LEAVED PLANTS GET FOOD FROM THE AIR. All growth in plants and animals alike, is made by the increase in number and the development of certain microscopic boxes known as cells. A very thin cross section of a piece of the pith of the elder will show the primary (17) 18—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING structure of plant cells under a glass of small magnifying power. ‘There are many plants of minute size existing in water that, during all their lives, con- sist of but a single box or cell. Then advancing in complexity we find these cells strung together in threads, then in flat surfaces in a single layer, and finally arranged in numerous forms circling around the stem of the plant to make up the structure. We are so accustomed to look upon a tree as an individual existence that it is hard to realize that it is really a great com- munity of individuals, each doing its work in the way it was set out to do in the beginning and never making any mistake about it. It is hard to realize too, that the framework of the great oak is a lifeless thing, around which life circles in a myriad of forms, while it has entirely abandoned its finished work, and that the central heart wood takes no part whatever in the vital functions of the tree, but is merely the mechanical support of the army of builders which, year after year, add thickness to its stem and wider spread to its branches. This heart may entirely decay and the tree become hollow, and the life still continue to circle around it. Hence it is important to know more of the structure and functions of plants in order to fully understand their needs. We have said that all growth is made by the multiplication of these little box-like cells. The tree grows like a building, in which brick after brick is placed in the walls. But in the case of the plant the brick maker and the mason live inside the brick. The walls of the cells contain no life, but are the result of the vital forces contained within them. Every plant cell in its growing state is filled with the substance that carries life with it. This substance has been given the name of protoplasm, or the first thing formed. It is a clear semi-fluid substance, partly granular and partly transparent, and uniform in its appearance. ‘This substance, resembling the white of an egg more than anything else, does all the work of the plant, and it is what in the composition of the plant is called by chemists the albumenoid or protein part. It is itself entirely formless, and yet this formless substance controls the shape of the cell that encloses it, and makes the wonderful variety of forms of cells that we find in the plant by the aid of our microscopes, and little by little builds up the form of the plant, always with an unerring accuracy, so that the final result is such that we recognize the plant as belonging to a certain genus and species, though it may be, and probably is, in some minor points unlike every other plant, even of the same species. But as to the essential features, the protoplasm never makes any mistake. The oak may grow beside the pine, and their roots interlock and feed upon the same substances in the-soil, while their tops are bathed in the same sunlight. But the oak never by any chance makes a pine cell, nor the pine an oak cell ; = THE Atr—19 though no one can discern any difference in the living matter of the two. Each follows the laws of its inheritance, and obeys the order set out for it in creation. I have said that this living matter inside the plant cells is partly of a granular nature. Some of these grains are colored green, and thus give us the green color of vegetation. This green color is a very important matter, for without it there could be no growth. We may put a plant in darkness and blanch the leaves white, and then examine the grains under the micro- scope and we find that they are still there, but the green color is gone, and the plant stops growing. It is evident then that the green is of importance to the growth of the plant. It is, in fact, the substance that enables the plant to get the food it needs from the carbon-di-oxide in the air. Every leaf has on its surface a mutitude of small valves, opening and closing like a pair of lips, and they are really the mouths through which it takes in food. These mouths are far more plentiful on the under sides of leaves than on the upper, and in some plants there are none at all in the upper surface. ‘The interior of the leaf is made up of a loose aggregation of cells containing the green granules. The mouths open in among the spaces be- tween these loosely arranged cells, and thus bring the air to the interior of the leaf. When the sun is shining, and at no other time, these mouths in the leaf are wide open. The air enters the leaf laden with the carbon-di-oxide. If the temperature around is proper for the growth of that particular plant, the green matter at once decomposes the carbon-di-oxide, separating the car- bon from the oxygen. The oxygen is then thrown off to purify the air, and the carbon is retained by the plant. We do not know that this identical oxygen is that which is thrown off, but we do know from experiment that the same amount of oxygen is thrown off as was combined with the carbon. Now in the wonderful laboratory of the green leaf, begins the work of the living matter. From the roots water has been brought up to the leaves, in which is dissolved the various forms of plant food that come from the soil. As it comes from the roots it is merely water with plant food dissolved in it. With this water, and the carbon that has been gotten from the air through the leaf mouths, the living matter goes to work to prepare food for its own suste- nance, and to make the materials out of which it builds its cell walls, and thickens their woody structure. The first thing formed from the carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, is probably some form of sugar for the immediate use of the plant. But the living matter works rapidly, and makes more material than it can use at once, either for food or building walls, and hence it has to store the reserve material. This reserve material is the first thing we can dis- cover in the leaf, and it is starch. When starch is made in the leaf it is soon 20—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING carried away and stored for future use, unless at once needed to build walls with. It is stored in roots, in underground tubers like the Irish potato, and in stems generally, and in seeds. The surplus over what the plant needs for its existence, forms what animals consume as food. In some seeds, the starch is further transformed into oil for preservation. Now neither starch nor oil are direct plant food, but they are stored in the seed for the future use of the germinating plant, as they will keep unchanged, while sugar, the food, will not keep. But when a seed germinates another wonderful change takes place. A fermentive principle is formed, which has the power to transform the oil back into starch, and from starch into glucose, or grape sugar, which can be used directly by the living matter as food, and as material for building up structure, until the green leaves are formed and the roots begin to absorb matter from the soil. During the time the seed has been dry, the living matter has simply been dormant, waiting for the coming of water under a proper temperature with the oxygen of the air, to render it once more active. There is a great differ- ence in the length of time during which the living matter will retain its vitality in a dormant state. Some seeds lose their vitality as soon as they be- come completely air dry ; others will retain their vitality for a year, while still others will remain dormant for a number of years, and will grow as soon as the proper conditions of moisture , heat and air are present. Elsewhere will be found a table showing the length of time different seeds are good. HOW PLANTS GET FOOD FROM THE SOIL. Put several layers of damp blotting paper in a glass jar or tumbler, and on it place several beans, and then cover with a piece of glass, so as to retain moisture. In a few days the beans will germinate, and begin to throw out long white roots. Now examine these roots. You will find that the extreme tip of the rootlet is of rather a conical shape and is smooth and naked, while a little back from the tip a magnifying glass of moderate power will show you that the sur- face of the root is covered with a thick coat of fine velvety hairs. These root hairs are the organs through which the plant absorbs water from the soil. Their extreme fineness precludes the possibility of anything being absorbed that is not in a state of complete solution, as all solid particles must of course, be strained out. The mineral food of the plant is dissolved in the soil water, and is sucked by the root hairs from the watery films that surround each particle of the soil. In order that they shall do this, it is essential that the THr AIR—21 particles of the soil shall be in a state of fine pulverization, whereby its power of retaining moisture is greatly increased. Prof. King, in his work on the soil, illustrated this in the following way: A marble, dipped in water, will retain around it a film of water. If it is broken in two there will be an increase of surface to hold a film of water, and if it is pulverized, there will be a marvellous increase in the number of particles, each having a film of water around it. These root hairs are produced on a short part of the rootlet just back of the tip as fast as the tip is projected into the soil, and as the root back of them grows older, and the cell walls thicken, the root hairs die off, and that part of the root remains simply as a conduit for the water the root hairs are gathering beyond. In this way, the root hairs are being continually formed in fresh soil and are foraging in new pastures. It should be easy then to understand. that where a little fertilizer or manure is placed only in the hill, the roots soon get beyond it, and the feeding organs, the root hairs, are hunting for food in poorer soil. But the root tip itself is one of the most admirably contrived parts of the whole plant. The extreme point of every rootlet is a little older than the part just behind it. In other words, the actual growing tip of the rootlet is a group of young forming cells under the protection of a root cap. At this growing point new cells are formed to continue the elongation of the root, and to add to the stricture of the root cap from beneath, so that the root cap is always being renewed from behind, as it is pushed through the soil by the elongation of the root behind it, and protects the young forming cells beneath it. It is easy to see that this is an admirable provision for the protection of the point of growth. In the older botanical works, it was stated that the ex- treme tips of the roots were what they called “spongioles,”-and it was supposed that the work of absorption was carried on by the “spongioles.” Having now- adays better microscopes, we have learned that there are no “spongioles” at all, but that the protecting root cap goes ever ahead of the advancing rootlet to search out the way, and to guide the root into fresh food. There seems to be a sort of dull sensitiveness in the root cap, by which it is in a measure en- abled to choose its way among the particles of the soil. The roots branch in an irregular sort of a manner, and not after the regularity of the branches above the ground, each branch coming out from the central core of the rootlet, and carrying with it a portion of the outer bark as its first root cap, and then the branches form root hairs just as the main rootlets do. The root hairs seem to have the power, by some sort of secretion, to attach themselves firmly to the particles of the soil and suck moisture from 22—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING them. If you sprout a seed in sand, and when the roots have developed, take it carefully from the sand and gently wash the roots, you will find that the root hairs are covered with fine particles of the sand, closely adhering to them. This close adhesion of the root hairs enables them to absorb all the moisture that surrounds the soil particles as a film, and enables them to get an amount of moisture from an apparently dry soil, that is surprising to those who have not studied that matter closely. There is also evidence that the root hairs do to some extent, exert a solvent influence on matters in soil otherwise insoluble. THE COURSE OF THE SOIL WATER IN THE PLANT. There is a direct connection between the roots branching in the soil, with their myriad of absorbing hairs, and the leaves on the top of the plant. In our trees and woody plants, this course is through the youngest sap wood, and in herbaceous plants like corn, it is through the pithy soft tissue. Anyone who has observed a corn stalk, has seen that through the soft part of the stalk there are a multitude of threads. Observing a cross section of the corn stalk under the microscope, we see that these threads are really tubes, or elongated cells, with thickened walls, and in the growing state of the plant, the walls of these cells are always saturated. As the leaves branch off, some of these tubu- lar threads branch into the leaves and form the framework, or what we call the veins of the leaf. It is through these fibres that the sap water reaches the leaves, and it is in the leaf where all the wonderful changes are made by which new material for growth is formed. Then after the materia! for growth is made it is carried wherever there is call for material through the youngest cells of the growing bark, and all the material for growth of top and roots comes from the leaves. Twist a wire tightly around the stem of a growing plant, and you will see that the growth is coming downward from the leaves. The stem swells above the stricture, and if it is long continued the path for the ascending sap water is finally cut off, and the branch will perish, with a swollen base formed from the materials that were taken in from air and soil before the wire was placed there. There was an old notion that the sap goes up in the spring and down in the fall. The fact is, that there is no circulation in plants that can be com- pared with the circulation of the blood in animals. The sap that rises in the trees in the spring is simply sap water in which the food of a mineral nature for the plant and the nitrogen for the living matter is dissolved, and the only descent is that of the formed material for growth. THe Arr—23 This sap water, when it comes from the ground, is in a very dilute state; and another function of the valves or mouths in the leaves, is to evaporate water into the air, and in this way, to condense and concentrate the food brought from the soil. This evaporation is also one of the means by which the water is pumped up from below, and that there is a rapid evaporation from the leaves is evidenced when we cut off a leafy branch and note how quickly the leaves wilt when the supply is cut off. Wilting of the leaves is also one of nature’s methods of protecting the plant. During the hours of sunlight, and at no other time, the mouths in the leaves are open to take in carbonic acid. But if the heat is great and the soil is dry, the leaves will wilt, and this at once closes the pores or mouths, and checks the evaporation until the plant can recover a supply from below. CHAPTER II. THE GROWTH OF A SEED. The prime object of the plant’s existence is to prepare for the perpetuation of its kind. In some plants, the whole force of its vitality is expended in one season, in the production of a large crop of seed, in the growth of which the plant is exhausted, and it perishes after the seeds are formed. Such plants enduring but for a summer, we call annuals. There are others that spend the first year of their existence in the storing up in roots a great accumulation of food, which they exhaust the next season in the production of seed, and they, too, then perish. These are called biennials, or two year plants. Others store up growth of larger dimensions, year after year, and finally, when strong and well matured, give some of the accumulated vitality to the production of fruit and seed, and continue to do so for many years; some for hundreds of years, having a rather indefinite term of existence. These we call perennials, or plants living through a long series of years. Still another class accumulate during years of growth, long or short, a great store of food, and finally make the supreme effort of their lives in the production of a vast growth of flowers and fruit, and then perish. To this class belong the plants known as Century plants, the American Agaves and others. F The plants that farmers depend upon for crops are chiefly the annual and biennial classes. THE FLOWER. The flower of a plant is considered by botanists to be really a collection of leaves, changed in various ways to serve the purpose of reproduction. Every complete flower has two protecting coats; the outer one called the calyx is commonly green, but is sometimes brightly colored. The inner circle of transformed leaves is called the corolla, and its separate leaves are called petals , while those of the calyx are called sepals. The inner circles of leaves are still further transformed so as to make stamens and pistils. On the sta- (24) THE GROWTH OF A SEED—25 mens are borne certain cells that open by valves, and which contain the male element of the flower called the pollen. The central set of transformed leaves makes what is called the pistil or female organ of the flower. At the lower end of this grows the seed vessel, or ovary, containing the ovules, which are to be transformed into seeds. At the upper end of the pistil is a variously shaped organ known as the stigma, which is naked and for a while moist on the surface. The pollen, or male element, falls on this and swells and begins to grow into a tube of various lengths, according to the character of the flower. This pollen tube passes through the tissue of the pistil till it reaches the ovary, and there in a certain cell of the ovule it sets up a new growth of cells, that gradually take on the form of a miniature plantlet, and form what is called the embryo, or germ, of the seed. In this seed the plant then stores up starch or oil sufficient for its sustenance till in its germination it can make green leaves. It then rapidly parts with the water and the seed. be- comes ripe, and remains dormant until brought again under the influence of moisture, warmth and the oxygen of the air. A seed then is a living organism in which vitality is simply suspended for a time, and which contains all the elements of a future plant when placed under proper conditions for growth. If it has these conditions it will grow. If they or any one of them are absent it will remain dormant or perish. If the seed is buried so deeply that the oxygen of the air cannot properly affect it, though there may be moisture and heat, it will not grow. We see this fre- quently in the case of clover seeds deeply buried in the soil, which grow after they have again been turned up to the influence of the air. If moisture is absent, the living matter of the seed cannot swell and become active, and though there may be heat and oxygen enough, the seed cannot grow. ‘Then, too, there may be moisture and oxygen, but if the temperature is not right for that particular seed, it will not grow. This proper temperature varies with different seeds. All cultivators know that some seeds need more heat than others. The garden pea will germinate at a temperature but little above the freezing point, while Indian corn subjected to the same conditions will perish. It is essential then, to know something of the nature of the seeds we plant so that we may give them the proper conditions of growth. THE FRUIT. While the seed is the final, result of the plant’s effort at reproduction, the fruit is the ripened vessel or ovary which contains these seeds. The pea pod is the fruit of the pea plant, and is simply the ripened seed vessel. But there are some plants in which other parts are commonly known as the fruit. 26—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING In the apple, the ripened seed. vessel, or core, is surrounded by the thickening calyx of the flower, which increases in size after the petals of the flower fall, and surround the fruit proper, which we call the core, and this thickened calyx is what we use as the fruit of the apple and pear and quince. In the strawberry, the end of the stem on which the fruits are borne, swells up and carries the collection of little fruits up, borne on its outer surface in little depressions. We call this edible part the fruit, while the botanist calls the seed vessels that contain the seeds, the true fruit. The edible part of the strawberry is merely the swollen receptacle which bore the flower. In our Indian corn, each grain that we call a seed is a separate fruit, the result of the ripening of the ovary of the pistil, which is the silk. For every grain on the cob is the result of a single female flower, and each grain has its own silk, and if each silk does not get pollen from the tassel, or male organ, there is no grain formed. Hence we can easily see why a single stalk of corn standing in a field seldom makes a perfect ear. In the field the great cloud of pollen that floats all around and covers the ground insures the fertili- zation or impregnation of every silk. The cereal grains then are ripened fruits and not mere seeds. In a state of nature the plant simply stores food enough to insure the growth of the plantlet for a while after germination. In cultivation the effort is to increase this store that it may be made use of by man for food for himself and domestic animals. Nature is content with mere reproduction ; we want something else. Hence to keep plants up to a greater production of useful material, it is necessary that we should accumulate the desirable qualities by constant selection of those that show the greater ten- dency to make what we want. Nature is perfectly content with a wild crab apple. It has all the power of reproduction, and is more hardy and vigorous than the highly developed apple, since it is the survival in the struggle with other plants of like character, while the plants we would choose have developed a certain desirable character for our use, but have in other respects gotten less able to survive in a struggle with wild plants. So we have paid attention to the accumulation of a desirable growth of the edible portion of the apple. and have bred it away from the original wild crab into something we want. But turn it back to the unaided forces of nature and it will soon revert to a form adapted to survive and the fruit will become less and less desirable to man. We find, then, that the more we refine a plant and fit it for our use the more it needs the fostering care of man, and the less able it is to take care of itself. The wild potato of Peru and Arizona makes small underground tubers, simply enough to keep a portion of the plant with buds and capable of grow- THE GrRowTH OF A SEED—27 ing again. We have bred the cultivated potato into the habit of storing larger quantities of starch in its under ground tubers, and this, too, has been brought about by a gradual accumulative selection of those that develop this habit to the greatest extent. Left to themselves, there is a constant tendency to revert into original and inferior forms. Our tomatoes are the result of long selection, starting with a cross of the smooth and hollow forms on the crooked and solid fleshed sorts, we have by accumulative selection gotten the knobby tomato inside the smooth skin of the hollow one, and we find yet that it is hard to keep it there, and the volun- teer plants that annually come up in the garden are apt to revert into one or the other of the original forms. CHAPTER 3. PLANT BREEDING. Many people imagine that the new and improved forms of garden and field plants that are brought out by our enterprising seedsmen are the result of some sort of magical hocus pocus of crossing or hybridizing, and think that by taking two plants that have characters we wish to combine we can, by crossing them, at once obtain the combined character we want. The fact is, that crossing simply gives us a starting point from which, by long and careful selection towards an ideal plant we may have in mind, we may finally reach a point near what we aimed at. The new varieties introduced by the seedsmen, when they are really new and valuable, are the result of long years of careful selection through which hereditary characters have been formed that may be expected to be permanent in the offspring. The writer once attempted the development of a variety of sugar corn that would have stamina enough for the Southern climate. As a starting point, a cross was made of the Leaming, a Western field corn of a yellow color, on the Mammoth sugar, a large eared, late sugar corn of a white color. The first result of the cross was to cut the plant loose from its inherited character, and the ears came sprinkled all over with white wrinkled grains, yellow wrinkled grains, white dent grains and yellow dent grains. We assumed that the yellow wrinkled grains were the ones that inherited the characters of both parents. Therefore we selected only these-for planting. The next season there was a larger pro- portion of grains that had this character, and they were produced on a plant - of a sturdy, yet short habit and just the style of plant we were aiming at. The process of selection was carried on year after. year in a location where the plants could not be affected by pollen from any other corn. But it required seven years of careful selection before we could establish the heredity that caused the plant uniformly to make yellow wrinkled grains all over the ears. (28) PLANT BREEDING—29 I mention this to show that the making of an improved variety of any plant that is reproduced from seed is nota sudden thing, but must be the result of long and patient effort. But it is an effort that any observant farmer can make for himself, and he can thereby increase the value of his crops to a very marked extent. There is no magic about it, but only the patient working towards an ideal well formed in mind to which we wish to attain. But in all plant breeding and improvement we must work for the char- acter of the whole plant and not for a single feature. In the colder sections of our country plant breeders who have undertaken the improvement of the Indian corn have been compelled to take earliness of ripening into account, and hence have developed a character that is not essential to the farmer in the more southern sections. In the South farmers have for generations been breeding corn simply for the. biggest ear. They get enormous ears, but by taking no account of the habit of the plant, they have developed a tall, long- legged corn that bears but a single ear and requires a greater distance in plant- ing, and hence makes a small product per acre. Southern improvers of the corn plant should work for a more dwarf and sturdy habit, and greater prolificacy. In other words, they should work for the character of plant they want without regard to whether it is a late ripening sort or not, since they have time enough to ripen any. But the Northern improver must take also the quality of early ripening in addition to the character of the plant and its prolificacy. Breed for a plant suited to your needs and not for one character of the plant alone. But it is not the corn plant alone that may be improved by selection. All our cereal grains, our cotton, tobacco and all other plants that are reproduced from seed, will yield to the same course of treatment and may be immeasurably improved. But to keep these improved forms to their standard the selection must be carried on the same way it has been done. A farmer gets an improved variety of corn, which has been selected on a certain line. He finds it really an improved variety. But he goes at once to work selecting seed out of the crib as he has always done, with- out reference to the character of the plant that bore the ear, and soon he finds that the corn has changed its character and is no longer like the corn he got, and he concludes that the improved sorts soon run out. But it is simply because he has bred it on a different line from that by which it was originally developed. He has worked simply for a big ear while the introducer worked for the whole plant. Another point to be observed in the improvement of plants is to remove them from disturbing influences around them. We may have corn which shows very nearly the character which we wish to perpetuate, and it is sur- - rounded by stalks that have produced no ear, but have made an abundance of 380—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING pollen on the tassel. The chances then are that the seed taken from the fine stalk will have been crossed by the inferior ones, and will take more of their character than its own. Therefore, in saving seed corn, we should make sure that none of the barren stalks are allowed to make tassels and thus to interfere with the process of seed improvement. I once undertook the im- provement of my tomatoes. I found one plant in the field which showed remarkable productiveness and fine, smooth fruit. It was surrounded by rough and undesirable plants. If I had taken the seed from this plant it would have been crossed by inferior kinds. Therefore I made cuttings from it late in the fall and potted them, and placed them in the greenhouse. They were there cared for as other greenhouse plants are, and more cuttings were made late in winter. By spring time I had plants enough to set a considerable area and all of the same identical habit, and could now save the seed with some certainty of getting plants more nearly like the original than if I had taken seed at first. These seeds were sown the following year and another selection made and carried over from cuttings, and in a few years I had a tomato which I have never seen excelled. Unfortunately, after years of effort the stock was lost in fire. I give this as a sample of what may be done by in- telligent effort with almost any of our garden vegetables and flowers. There is no branch of cropping either in field or garden, more interesting and profitable than the improvement of cultivated varieties. Form in mind the ideal plant which you wish to produce and annually select seed from plants that come nearest to your ideal plant. Never select for a single character in the plant. If you select simply for big ears of corn you may get the big ears along with other undesirable characters. If you select for a big tomato, you will get that, but it may be unproductive and of bad shape. In plant breeding we must take into consideration all the characters we wish to per- petuate in the plant, and try to breed out all the bad features by avoiding them. The improved tomato of today is the result of long-continued crossing and selection, for the purpose of getting the crooked, but solid and meaty Mexican tomato inside the smooth skin of the old smooth, but hollow tomato. It is always trying to get out, apparently, and hence constant selection is needed to keep a variety near the type. While we can, to a certain extent, get plants into the habit of coming true to seed it requires constant watchfulness to keep them so, for there is always a tendency to break away from the inherited form and to sport into others. A break of this sort may be an advantage and a starting point for a new variety found. I have recently had my attention called to a curious instance of this.. A gentleman has a tree of the old Blood peach, which has for years borne the same peach, and this peach is of such a fixed type that it commonly comes true when raised from PLANT BREEDING—31 seed. But the past season, the tree in question abandoned its habit and pro- duced a crop of white peaches instead of the typical ones, blood red to the seed. It is impossible to explain the cause of these reversions, or “sports,” as the gardeners call them. But when we find these variations from the normal type, we can frequently make them permanent by propagation. Many years ago, at Kenansville, N. C., Rev. Mr. Sprunt found a shoot on a Safrano rose bush in his garden, which made a flower of a lemon yellow color, whereas the Safrano is a buff colored rose. The sporting shoot was used for cuttings, and from this variation we have the Isabella Sprunt rose. Many other florist’s plants have originated in the same way. But in plants that are annually grown from the seed, it is necessary to fix by selection through years, the hereditary habit of coming true to the desired type. It is in this way that the races or strains of certain plants have become established. Carelessness in the selection of seed is the main cause of most of the degeneration of types that bother the farmer. He gets a corn or a wheat of a certain variety, which has been bred to its present state through a long series of years, by selecting towards a well established ideal plant in the mind of the grower. When he has brought it to a point of com- parative perfection it is sent out, and at once men who have different ideals or none, get hold of it, and the tendency to variation which all plants possess, starts it off in various ways, and while the seed lists continue to give the name of the variety the seed has often been bred away from the original type in to a variety of forms. A neighbor of mine many years ago, sent North and got seed of the King Phillip corn, a variety of a dark brownish yellow color, with a small cob and broad, flat, flinty grains. His idea was to get an early ripen- ing corn for late planting on the low lands near a river where the soil did not dry out early. Under his mode of selection the corn has assumed an entirely different type, and the only point in which it now resembles the King Phillip is its color, for the number of rows on the ear has doubled, and the corn is a * dent instead of a flint, and is now more similar to the Leaming. He selected simply for the largest ears, as is the common practice among the majority of farmers. Since the Indian corn is more susceptible to improvement than most of the crop plants grown by our farmers I will here give the method I have heretofore advised in regard to the saving of seed corn. If the grower is in the northern limit of the corn belt, he will have to pay attention to the earli- ness of the variety he wishes to secure. In the South this item may be entirely ignored, since we have plenty of time to mature any corn. I would begin with the best variety attainable in the section where the corn is to be grown, for it is far better to start with an acclimated corn than to get a 32—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING variety from north or south of the locality. Therefore get the best corn in your neighborhood, and plant a patch especially for seed. Give it the best of care in the preparation of the soil, the manuring and the cultivation, for a complete development is what we want first. Do not crowd a lot of plants in one hill, but plant singly in the rows. Now watch the corn as the tassels first show, and go through it and cut out every tassel before it ripens, from every hill that does not promise to make an ear; for these barren stalks are strong males and their pollen will have a deleterious influence on the plants around them. ‘Then, as the crop matures, mark the stalks that come nearest to the type of plant you are after. In the North, have an eye to the earliness of the plant as well as the other characteristics. In the South we need to breed towards a shorter and more sturdy plant, and to get away from the long- _ legged style so common, in which the ears are almost out of reach and are borne singly on the stalks. Select for productiveness, by marking only those with two or more ears. In the South, select for the seed ear the lowest one on the stalk, and this will generally be the smallest one, but it will inherit a tendency to form another ear above it, and we need this as well as the tendency to grow nearer the ground. In the North it may be best to save both ears. From the corn thus saved plant not only your entire field, but another seed patch, and on this seed patch, practice the same plan of selection, always keeping in mind the ideal plant you wish to establish. As the number of ears on the plant increase, and the productiveness of the variety is established, we would select for the general character of the plant year after year. The southern corn has become long-legged from the constant practice of selecting the largest ears in the crib. These large ears are commonly the only ones on the stalk, are usually borne high above the ground, may have been surrounded in the field by a multitude of barren and inferior stalks, and, as it is the pollen around the plant, rather than its own, which sets the grains, the plant- ing of the big ear will often lead to disappointment. If every farmer paid the proper attention to the selection of his seed corn, the crop all over the country would be immensely increased without any additional acreage. The cotton farmer in like manner should have his seed patch and select for the ideal cotton plant, and not merely for big bolls; and in all our annual crops plant breeding in an intelligent manner would greatly increase the average yield. But as the majority of farmers will not undertake this work, it leaves a wide field for intelligent effort for those who do, for they will be able to get a greatly increased price for their well bred seed from those who are not disposed to take the trouble. Not long since I had a letter from a North Carolina farmer saying that he had been practicing the method of saving seed corn which I had advised, and that his crop had increased in pro- PLANT BREEDING—33 ductiveness to such an extent that his neighbors were wanting his corn for seed. Such is always the case with the improvement of any of our crops, and shows that the reward of intelligent effort at improvement is certain. IMPROVING THE COTTON PLANT. There is no plant grown by our farmers which will yield more ready re- sults from intelligent selection and breeding than the cotton plant, and there is no plant grown in the United States of greater commercial importance. In fact, the greater part of our foreign commerce is founded upon the fact that we lead the world in the production of this great staple, and yet there is no farm plant that has been so persistently neglected by plant breeders. Of course here and there thoughtful men in the Cotton States have done much for the improvement of cotton for their particular section, and for.a while the varieties produced by them have a certain popularity. But soon the careless methods of selection among cultivators in general, change the character of the plant, and the ideal plant towards which the originator was working is lost sight of and a deterioration is the result. There is no one point in which there is greater need for intelligent effort on the part of the agriculturists of the Experiment Stations in the Cotton States, than in the improvement of varieties of cotton for the different sections of the cotton belt. In fact, the whole matter of plant breeding should claim the special attention of Station workers, for in no other way can the workers in agriculture and horticulture more efficiently aid the farmer and gardener, than in the production of more prolific plants of the various crops and the increase in the quality of their products. Here and there this matter has been receiving attention, and the real improvement in the cotton plant dates more from the origin of Experi- ment Stations than during any previous time. The cotton grower, like the grain farmer, has too long been aiming at special features in his product, rather than the general development of the whole plant. The corn grower © of the South has worked simply for a big ear. He gets this at the expense of prolificacy and gets a tall and ungainly plant. The cotton grower is en- raptured by a big boll, and fails to see that when breeding simply for a big boll he is getting a long legged “weed.” No real improvement can be effected in any plant that proceeds upon the selection for a single feature of the plant. The cotton grower wants, of course, as large a boll as possible, but he does not want the large boll at the expense of yield in general. He likes a good length of staple, but he does not want the long staple at the ex- pense of late maturity and weakness in the constitution of the plant. Hence ~~ 34—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING anyone who attempts the improvement of any of our crop plants must study the character of the whole plant, and not attempt to breed for characters that are antagonistic to each other. Our southern farmers readily recognize the fact that there are good and poor varieties of corn, wheat and other crops, but the great majority of the growers seem to think that cotton seed is simply cotton seed, and take very little thought about it so long as it will germinate and grow. The result is that only here and there have there been men who have given any attention to the selection of improved varieties of the cotton plant, and when these improved varieties are sent out among farmers they are delighted with some of them for a while, and then, having secured the improved strain, they assume that they have it for good, and go ahead as they formerly did, get their seed from the general crop at the gin, and the variable force so strong in the plant, soon takes it out of the strain into which care has bred it; and though the grower claims that he is still growing the variety, he has simply allowed it to run back to an inferior variety and finds it no better than the others. It is not the fault of the improved variety, but of the careless grower. So long, then, as the great mass of cotton growers will take no pains in the proper selection of their seed, there is room for great profit to the grower who will work in an intelligent manner to produce, for his own use at least, a cotton that will prove of increased productiveness and quality. Mr. H. B. Mitchell, an intelligent cotton grower in Georgia, writing in regard to this matter, says that he has proved the utter fallacy of the notion that any kind of cotton seed is as good as any other. “Starting out with un- improved seed making one-fourth of a bale per acre, we have, with improved seed and careful selection each year, produced a cotton which, under very ad- verse conditions, yields a bale per acre, and from which we are satisfied the limit has by no means yet been reached. 'To improve seed, the first of Sep- tember we go over the cotton, marking such stalks as evince the highest points of merit. The cotton from these stalks we pick in advance of the regular ~ cotton pickers, rejecting all damaged or immature bolls, and spreading as picked, till thoroughly dry. It is next carried to gin, the gin completely cleaned out, and swept around, a large sheet spread down to receive the seed, which is then sacked up and so kept till hauled to the field at planting time. Were it not for bees there would be no trouble in keeping the cotton pure, but they bring the pollen from fields of unimproved cotton, causing a good deal of mixture.” Mr. W. E. Cole, of Cartersville, Ga., writes: “I was raised on a cotton farm in the old South, and no care was taken in the saving of the seed, but it was simply taken from the general seed pile at the gin in the fall. AsTI grew older I began the study of the cotton plant more closely. I noticed PLANT BREEDING—35 that some stalks produced more lint than others and of a better quality, while some had hardly any as the seed was black and lintless, and these, of course, had their influence on the plants around. I began to think that if one could get rid of those black and lintless seeds it would be a great improvement in the cotton. (Lintless seeds bear the same relation to cotton as barren stalks do to corn—W. F. M.) But upon noticing more closely I found several varieties of cotton in the same field. Some was storm proof, while in others the cotton would fall from the boll in the least shower of wind or rain. In 1897, while picking cotton, I found a variety which suited me better than any I have ever seen, as it produces more and larger bolls and lint of a superior quality, being long and fine and the seed of small size. When the season was over I had fifty pounds of seed cotton of this variety. I took it to my ginner and gave him the lint to take the seed out clean and separately. He cleaned his gin of all seed that was in it, and fed it through by hand, so that I had a bushel of clean seed to take home. In the spring this was planted on an acre, well cultivated and thinned to eighteen inches apart in three-foot rows. It made a rank growth and we had to lay it by the-last of June, as it was then too rank to get through. When fall came it was a pleasant sight to look upon, the stalks averaging 40 to 50 bolls and some as many as 80 well devel- oped bolls; and would pick nearly a pound of cotton. I cleaned 1,000 pounds of lint from that acre and got seed enough to plant my entire crop the following year. I sold no seed that year. One of my neighbors contended there was nothing in selected seed and I gave him a bushel of my seed, which he planted in the middle of his field with mixed varieties on either side, to give it a fair test; when fall came he was thoroughly convinced, as the selected seed made double the crop of the mixed seed on the same ground. I make 35 to 50 per cent. more cotton than with mixed and unselected seed.” These items of experience, from practical cotton growers, show plainly that there is no crop more amenable to improvement than the cotton crop, if the seed is wisely selected. If every grower of cotton would take the same pains the crop could easily be doubled without any increase of acreage, and there would be more profit at low prices than there is now at fair prices. Since the price of cotton in this country is almost entirely dependent upon the size of the crop, and a large crop is apt to run the price down to a point at which a careless grower finds no profit, it is evident that if a care- ful man, by intelligent selection of seed, can double the product of his area, the selection is well worth looking after. But, as we have said, any selection for the improvement of the product must take into consideration the whole plant and its surroundings. The habit of the plant has a great deal to do with the size and character of the 36—Cror GROWING AND Crop FEEDING crop. A cotton plant that habitually grows long-jointed and single-bolled can never be as productive as one that is more compact in habit and makes twin bolls. Long staple is a good feature, but if mere length of staple is the only feature looked after it may be accompanied by other less desirable characters. Hence, in the improvement of cotton, it is desirable to get to- gether the plants that have certain desirable features, though they may not all be combined in one plant. But by planting together the ones that have at least one feature we are after, and taking them away from the influence of plants like the lintless ones, we may by degrees get the desirable features combined in one variety, if we annually work towards an ideal. Mr. Cole was very fortunate in making such an advance in a single season, but if the same selection is not followed up the variable character of the plant will soon run the cotton back to its former mixed character. The permanent improvement of no plant that is annually reproduced from seed can be effected in a single season. We must patiently, year after year, select towards the ideal we have in mind, until we have established hereditary tendencies to come like the seed plant. Only after years of careful selection can we claim to have an im- proved variety. And here is right where there has been more failures than in anything else connected with the cotton crop. One grower, like Mr. Cole, finds plants of extra quality and saves the seed. The result is an improve- ment. But the plants selected from were surrounded by others of inferior character, and, as Mr. Mitchell says, the bees are always bringing pollen to the blooms, for there is a great deal of nectar in a cotton flower, and the result is that the variety is not uniformly the same, nor permanent. The plants for seed should annually be planted in a section by themselves, and all inferior plants that vary from the type sought should be rigorously rogued out. No matter if your entire crop was planted that season from selected seed of the year before, save no seed but from the seed patch where the watch — has been kept on it, and finally you will get a real race, or strain, of improved cotton that will be permanent. I have treated thus fully on the fruit and the seed, since upon these depend all the improvement we are to make in our cultivated plants that are to produce the crops we sell and use. And there is no one point in farm economy more neglected than the breeding of the plants we cultivate. Seedsmen fully understand the great value of pedi- gree in their seed stocks, and pedigree in a plant also that in an animal, comes through thoughtful and persistent breeding towards an ideal plant or animal. We have treated of the selection of seed in the corn and cotton plants as types of two great crops that are of interest to two large classes of growers. But the improvement through selection is not confined to cotton and corn. There is not a crop grown on the farm that will not yield improved results to the PLANT BREEDING—37 intelligent plant breeder. The broom corn grower can increase the length and quality of his brush and get it on a plant nearer within reach by careful selection and the growing of a seed-stock by itself, for no permanent advance can bemade so long as the seed-stock is subject to disturbing influences around it. We have been hearing a great deal of late years about the need for seed testing under Government control, and our great Department of Agriculture has, until recently, done a good deal of laboratory testing of seeds. While this work has a certain value in the determining of the clean character of the seeds and their germinating quality, it does not go far enough to determine anything of real value to the cultivator. The wide awake gardener, farmer or seed grower lays more stress upon the pedigree of the seed than upon the mere matter of percentage of germination. Of course a fair percentage of germinating power is essential in any seed that is to be planted, but the wise cultivator will take seed of a lower germination test than another if he knows that it has a better pedigree behind it. The laboratory germination test proves nothing in this regard, and, in fact, would not show whether a certain sample was cabbage seed or cauliflower or some other cruciferous plant, or whether a certain sample of beets was an early or late variety. All that the laboratory test proves is -the per- centage of pure seed free from trash and weeds there is in a sample and the percentage of these seeds that will germinate. The only real test of seeds is that practiced hy the best seedsmen who run farms at great expense, for the sole purpose of testing the seeds they sell, in the same conditions that their customers must be under; and also by the workers in the Experiment Stations in their variety trials. Intelligent seed growers must of necessity understand the laws of nature under which all their at- tempts at improvement must be carried out. It is an easy matter for the gardener who is propagating plants from cuttings, buds, grafts and layers to catch and make permanent a certain variation in his plants that may be desirable, for he is simply reproducing that identical plant; and he can retain the variation at once and make it permanent, as I have shown, in the instance of the rose grown from a sporting shoot, which at once makes a new variety to be cut into thousands and put on new roots. But in the case of the plants annually grown from seed there is a set of very different conditions. Plants are infinitely variable, and the blossoms that are to form the seeds are subject to infinite interference from insects, winds and the neighborhood of other plants of the same species. Plants of a vigorous character are always tending to break away from the line of their breeding, and if the grower slack in his efforts, or loses sight of the ideal towards which he is selecting, nature makes a reversion, and it may be towards an inferior type. Hence, as 38—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING we have said in the case of the cotton of Mr. Cole, it is not enough to have made a start. It must be kept up, and only constant vigilance will keep any plant true to type and above its fellows. Therefore we would lay down the following rules for those who would improve their cultivated crops: 1. Fix well in mind the type of plant you wish to grow, and never for an instant lose sight of it. 2. Begin by selecting the plant that comes nearest to the type, and do not expect to get your ideal all at once. 3. So far as practicable, remove inferior plants from the immediate vicinity of your selected plant; save seed from the selected plant only. 4. Plant the selected seed as far removed as possible from any other plants of the same kind, and then rigidly root out every plant that falls below the first selection; save seed only from plants that show a decided advance towards the ideal plant you have in mind. 5. Never breed for a single character of the plant, but take the whole plant into consideration. If you breed simply for a big ear of corn or a big boll of cotton, you may get these at the expense of other desirable characters ; but take the whole character of the plant, its habit of growth, its general productiveness and every desirable character, so as to get not only the kind of product you want, but get it on an ideal plant. If you follow this up with patience, year after year, always remembering that what you want is seldom what nature would place in the survival of the fittest, and that any relax- ation of effort on your part will give nature a chance to undo your work,— you will finally find that you have a race of seed on which you can rely with certainty as to the result, you will find that intelligent seed merchants are ever on the hunt for the men who have sense enough to study and im- prove their plants, your neighbors will take an interest in your crops and there will be more money in your purse, and you will be a benefactor of your race by improving production. While the improvement of the soil for the production of crops is the main object of this book, there is no doubt that we will be excused for dwell- ing so long on the seed and its selection, for there is fully as much to be gained in this way as by the improvement of the soil in which they are grown. No matter how a farmer or gardener may improve his soil in productive capacity, if he plants seed of inferior character his crops will not be what they should be. If our farm readers could visit, as I have done, the seed farms of the seed growers, and the testing farms of the great seed dealers, they would be amazed at the minute care that is needed to preserve and improve the seeds they purchase; they would no longer wonder that first class seeds must bring a fair price, and they would realize that the most costly thing a man PLANT BREEDING—39 can buy is poor seed. Not merely seed of poor germinating power, but seed destitute of breeding, and, like a scrub cow, not entitled to register among well bred animals. And yet in all their purchases there is no one point where farmers are so short sighted as in the purchase of seed. This is particularly true of seeds of forage and grass crops, which are so generally purchased. A farmer finds in the hands of a commission merchant a lot of clover seed right from the huller, and buys it, solely because it is to be had for a dollar or more less per bushel than seed that a seedsman has carefully recleaned. The re- cleaned seed is usually cheaper by reason of the greater number of clover seed in the bushel, and it is infinitely cheaper in the fact that the farmer sows no weeds with it. The larger part of the weeds that infest our farms and re- duce our crops, have gotten there in foul grass and clover seed. A farmer recently wrote me that his farm is so completely stocked with the narrow- leaf plantain gotten in clover seed that he can no longer make a decent crop of clover. I never read a better sermon on the value of clean seed than his let- ter. Buying cheap seeds, or rather low priced seeds, is “saving at the spigot and losing at the bunghole.” Better pay two prices for clean clover and grass seed than to have the inferior given to you. Farmers should be students of seeds in more ways than one. They should learn to know seeds of all sorts when they see them. For instance, take a sample of clover seed. It may have in it as a purposely added adulteration (as is practiced by some), seeds of the worthless yellow trefoil; and the farmer who has not studied seeds will not detect the adulteration till he sees his fields yellow with the trefoil in- stead of red clover. It may have in it seeds of dodder that will speedily de- stroy clover, and they will pass muster with the careless observer, by reason of their yellow color. A good magnifying glass is of greatest import- ance in the selection of seeds, and a knowledge of seeds is quite as important. Hence every farmer should get a collection of the seeds of all sorts of foul weeds, and get completely familiar with them, so that he can at once detect what impurities are in the seed samples he is examining. The seed is the starting point of the crop, and if the crop is to be a success the seed must be the best. The seed is also the starting point of the weed, for a weed is merely a plant where it is not wanted. Hence if we do not want weeds we should be extremely careful never to sow them. Many thousands of acres of the best mowing lands are so foul with weeds that there is more weed in the hay than timothy or clover, and the losses to farmers all over the land, through foul clover and grass seed, are so great that we cannot too urgently insist upon the importance of the seed. CHAPTER IV. THE SOIL. While, as we have seen, plants get by far the larger part of their structure from the air, they get by far the most important matters from the soil, so far as the making of a crop is concerned.. While the carbon-di-oxide in the air and the oxygen itself are essential to plant growth, the soil and the matters which it furnishes are also essential. Some idea, therefore, of the origin of soils and their nature and composition is essential to a proper understanding of plant life, and the means for best sustaining and improving it. Back in the eighteenth century, the great French chemist, Lavoisier, enunciated the great truth that in this earth nothing is created and nothing is destroyed. That is, all substances that now exist have existed from the beginning and will always exist. We cannot create anything; we can simply make new combinations of things already existing in soil and air, and when this new combination is destroyed, these matters go back to the forms in which they were acquired. We grow a tree from materials existing in soil and air. Finally we burn the tree and get back the heat it originally got from the sun. It is destroyed as a tree, but the carbon-di-oxide and water and nitrogen have gone back where they came from, into the air; we have left a handful of ashes, representing what it got from the soil, and these we put back in the soil, where they can be used over again to build other plants. The elements that went to make up the tree are still in existence, just as they were before they were combined into a tree; and so in soil and air nature is simply working over the same old materials and forming new combinations. The soils that form the foundation for our farms are all the result of the gradual breaking down of the old earth-crust, and the crumbling and pulver- izing of the rocks through natural agencies. When the earth first cooled from a molten ball, the old, crystalline rocks were formed, and in the lapse of ages other rocks were formed under water, and afterwards were elevated. As soon as rocks are above the sea the process of disintegration begins. The (40) THE Sort—41 waves of the ocean dash upon them and grind them into sand. Rains, by imperceptible degrees, dissolve them. Water gets into the cracks and by freezing, forces off particles large or small. It is, therefore, by this weather- ing process that the materials for our soils have been formed, and then washed down from the higher to lower elevations, and spread abroad over the rocky base. Many soils are formed from the gradual decay of the rocks on which they rest, and are, therefore, of the same composition as the rocks themselves. Other soils have no connection with the rocks beneath them, but are formed by the decomposition of other rocks, mixed with decayed organic matter, and brought down in flood and deposited on the low lands, making what are known as alluvial soils. Then, too, in many instances the valley lands, known as limestone soils, are the beds of ancient lakes, in which the lime- stone was formed from the shells of mollusks; the alluvial soil was afterwards accumulated above the rocks, and the soil really contains less lime than soil of a very different formation. The mountains of the present day are far lower than they were when first formed, and the constant wearing away is still going on; the streams still bring down from the mountains vast amounts of fresh soil to accumulate on the flats and river bottoms, gradually forming more alluvium. Every hill that is in cultivation is constantly being carried off to the lower lands; hence, the low lands are of varying nature, sandy, clayey or silty, according to the kind of material brought down to them from time to time. Of course, there is a great variation in the mineral constituents of soils every- where, depending on the chemical make up of the rocks from which these mineral matters come. Low lands about the bases of the hills are generally fertile, not only because of the masses of soil transported to them in floods, but because the rain water running down to them from the hills carries the most soluble elements of fertility with it, to be absorbed by the low-land soil. The low lands are constantly being extended and elevated, and the ponds are constantly being filled, till finally the smaller lakes become fast land, being filled up by soil washed down from the hills and with the remains of the vegetation they produce themselves. But while all the soft earth above the solid rocks is called soil, the soil — that the farmer is mainly concerned with is that upper portion that has be- come altered by exposure to the effects of the air and the carbonic acid in the rain water, and which has become mixed with the decay of vegetable mat- ter and has assumed a darker color by reason of this vegetable decay. We call this the soil, and all that lies below is called the subsoil. They may be, and generally in our upland soils are, identical in their composition; and differ 42—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING only in the fact that the surface soil has accumulated humus from the vege- decay, and, by being exposed to the action of the oxygen of the air, has been brought into a condition in which it more readily gives up to plants its store of food. The original source of the humus in the soil was the natural growth on the land. Nature does not like bare ground and she soon covers it with some sort of vegetation. Among the grass and weeds the seeds of trees find lodge- ment and grow, and soon a forest is formed. The trees send their roots down deeply into the soil, and then scatter their leaves on the surface to gradually decay, year after year forming more and more of the black decay, and increas- ing the fertility of the soil. Then, after a while, some one comes along and cuts the forest down, and begins to cultivate the soil. He finds it fertile and productiye, and he goes right along cultivating it in the same crop year after year, and it grad- ually becomes less and less productive, till finally it is abandoned, to grow up once more in grass and weeds and once more be taken by nature for a new forest. Then, on the soil which was called worn out, but which was simply rendered unproductive by bad treatment, nature, by her unaided forces, with no fertilizer but that which she gathers from her own bosom, makes a grander growth than the man who wasted the soil ever grew. And she repeats the same process that formed the soil in the beginning, bringing up from deep down in the subsoil matters for the growth of trees, and spreading it year after year on the surface. Then another fellow comes along and makes fire- wood out of this second forest, and goes to work to reduce again the soil made fertile by the forest. He sueceeeds sooner than the first, for the accumu- lation is more recent and lighter. But this man cannot afford to throw the land out and clear another piece as the first possessor of the soil did. So he begins to dribble a little commercial fertilizer on it to induce the soil to yield him crops to sell. He does this year after year, and keeps culti- vating the land in cotton or corn or wheat, as the case may be, and he wonders that the land seems to grow poorer and poorer, and the farmer gets poor too. But let him stop in despair, and nature will grow a grand crop again on that land without calling in the aid of the fertilizer man. Of course, we cannot, in our modern agriculture, adopt the methods that nature does exactly. Life is too short for a man to wait for the forest to grow and enrich a piece of land for him; he must get the same results in a far quicker manner. Get- ting a hint from nature’s methods, we can do all that she does, and do it in a very brief time compared with her work. That the soil has not been ex- hausted as was thought, is shown by the fact that the forest grows readily on this land when it is left to its own resources. It had simply declined to give _{ "=u, THE Sorr—43 up its plant food as rapidly as we needed it for crops, but was still in condi- tion to gradually give it up to the slower demands of the forest. The fact is, that no land, originally fertile, and of good mechanical composition, is ever worn out. It may be brought into a very unproductive condition, and its mechanical condition be made unfavorable to the production of crops, but it will still have the matters in it that can be made available. By proper tillage and the use of restorative crops, such soils can be restored to their original productiveness through their own resources. ‘The process of restor- ing such soils in this way would be too slow for our modern ideas, and hence the soluble matters used in a concentrated form as fertilizers have their legitimate use in the upbuilding of the modern farm. In many cases the soil has simply been robbed of the humus or vegetable decay, and is still as rich in mineral plant food as ever, but its mechanical condition is such that plants cannot thrive in it as they did. The soil runs together and bakes hard after rains, and the cost of tillage is greatly increased, while the productiveness of the land has decreased. It simply needs a restoration of the black humus that made it mellow and re- tentive of moisture, and rendered the plant food in it more available. There are many soils called worn out which never had much to wear out. A little accumulation of vegetable matter on top of a deep sand was soon used up, and a blowing sand is the result. Such soils had far better be left to pine and scrub oak. Thousands of American farmers find themselves confronted by the prob- lem of “worn out” lands, and how to restore them to productiveness, and it is with the hope of aiding them in the solution of the problem in an economical manner that this book has been written. LIVING SOILS AND DEAD SOILS. There are in many sections of the country, large areas of land originally fertile and productive, which would have remained permanently productive, had they been properly managed. Their condition is due largely to the fact that life has abandoned them, because the low forms of plant life that carry on the changes in the soil and make plant food available, have been starved out, and no addition simply of concentrated plant foods will take the place of. the foods on which the bacteria of nitrification exist. When these lands were cleared from the forest, or broken from the prairie sod, they were full of the black decay of organic matter. They were retentive of moisture and gave up their plant food to the cultivator in abundant crops. Year after year the process was repeated and the soil robbed. No steps were taken to keep up 44—-Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING the amount of the black humus that made the soil originally productive, and gradually it was used up. The minute organisms, whose life is spent in the transformation of this organic matter into forms adapted to the use of crops, perish by reason of the burning up of the humus. ‘There is nothing for them to work upon. The soil runs together and bakes under the influence of the rains, and rapidly dries out, so that there is a lack of moisture for the solu- tion of the plant food it contains. The oxidizing influence of the air fails to penetrate the compact soil, and though it still contains all the plant food needed for big crops, it becomes an unproductive soil because plants can no longer get what the soil has for them in abundance. It isa dead soil. And all over the land one sees these dead soils, made so not only by the using up of the humus but by the settling of the soil into a sour mass; where formerly it hardly needed drainage, now it is sour, not from lack of food but from lack of the ability of the air to penetrate and mellow it. That humus may not have had in it nearly the amount of plant food that still remains in the soil, but it was the preservative agent in the soil, the only thing that kept life there, and its absence means death to soil and crops. One of the most thoughtless advocates of commercial fertilizers some time ago said in print: “Give humus a rest, we can get along without it if we have plenty of soluble fertilizers for our crops.” All over the country, and especially in the South, farmers have been giving humus a_ rest, and their lands have become less and less productive, notwithstanding the millions of dollars’ worth of commercial fertilizers they use upon them in the vain hope that they will take the place of permanent fer- tility. If the worn soils are ever to be redeemed it must be through the get- ting back there of that bacterial life that carries on the changes in organic decay, and these can only exist when there is this organic decay present. A soil filled with bacterial life is really a living soil and a fertile one, while one without it will always be less productive. It will be less productive, not only by reason of the absence of the organisms that release nitrogen in the soil, but by reason of its smaller power to retain moisture and heat and to dissolve the plant foods applied in the fertilizers. Last summer we applied a dressing of fertilizer to a crop of sweet potatoes on some of this dead land. The summer was extremely dry, and when the potatoes were dug the crop was only such as the soil would have made alone, for the fertilizer was lying there as dry as when applied. On another piece where the humus had been to some extent restored, the fertilizer acted well, simply because there was moisture retained there to dissolve it, and the plants got it. If there were no living organisms to help us in this humus, its mechanical effect would alone give it sufficient value to warrant every effort to retain and increase it. ff im THe Sorr—45 HOW TO DETERMINE WHAT THE SOIL NEEDS. When men first began to be interested in the chemical composition of soils, and the improvement of their productive capacity, they jumped to the conclusion that a chemical analysis. would show them just what was lacking; and by adding this they could restore the soil to its original productive character. But chemical analysis at once showed them that there may exist very large quantities of all the needed plant foods and yet the soil remain in a very unproductive staté, owing to the fact that the plant food it contains is in a condition insoluble in the soil-water, and, as the plants cannot take anything through their roots that is not completely dissolved in the soil- water, they starve in the midst of potential plenty. Therefore, while soil analysis has its use, it can never be depended upon to tell the farmer just what his soil needs to render it productive, so far as the food supply is con- cerned. The fact is, too, that soils vary widely within narrow areas, and an analysis of the soil from one portion of a field will not give a correct idea of the nature of the soil in another portion. As the uselessness of soil analyses became apparent men began to study the needs of plants, and the way in which different crops use the food elements. While all plants use the same kinds of food from the soil, they use them in varying proportions, one needing more nitrogen, or more phosphoric acid, or more potash than another. Acting on the belief that from the analysis of the plant we could accordingly propor- tion the different plant-food elements for each crop, the manufacturers of fertilizers began to make what are known as special fertilizers, and recom- mended one for one crop and another for another. ‘There seemed to be a rea- sonable basis for such notions, but really there is not such a serious difference after all, in the manurial requirements of plants, while there is a wide dif- ference in the manurial requirements of soils. If chemical analysis, then, will not materially help us in deciding what our soils need, how are we to ascertain what we should apply and what we need not buy? All farmers know that without some such knowledge they’ are likely to be wasting money in the purchase of matters that they do not need on their land. This is a matter which every farmer must find out for himself, and no one can find it for him elsewhere than right on his own farm. Hence every farmer should be, to some extent, an experimenter. He must experiment with his land not only to discover its food needs, but also to find whether through imperfect preparation and imperfect drainage he is not obliged to buy plant food which he does not need at all. Of the methods of this experimentation we will treat in detail elsewhere. First let us see what things are essential in the soil in order that plants may grow. CHAPTER V. PLANT FOOD. We have already seen that by far the larger part of the bulk of the plant comes from the air, through the assimilation of carbon by the green leaves. By burning the plant we drive this off into the air again, and with it also the nitrogen, which came to the plant from the soil, but originally was derived by the soil from the air. What we have left in our ashes shows the mineral matters that were derived from the soil. Chemical analysis shows us what these were. We find that the ash consists of various combinations of what are known as elements. An element is matter reduced to its final form, or something in which we can find nothing else of a different nature. These elements are either metallic or non-metallic. The element nitrogen, for instance, is a gas existing, as we have seen, in all air. Iron is a metallic element. None of the elements are used by plants as pure elements. Nitrogen must be gotten into the soil in combination with something else to hold it there and render it soluble in the soil-water so that plants can take it up, for the ordi- nary green plants cannot use the free nitrogen gas. Nor can they use a metal like iron, until it is acted upon by the acids and made into an oxide ora sulphate, and even then they use very little of it. It has been found by care- fully conducted experiments that plants cannot grow without a supply in the soil of some combination of the following elements: Nitrogen, potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron, phosphorus and sulphur. As we have already said, while iron is essential, it is used in very small quantities, and all soils in which plants make green leaves will be found to contain an abundance of iron. Magnesium and calcium (the element from which lime is formed) are also generally in abundance for all the needs of them as plant food direct. Of the further use of lime we will speak more fully hereafter. (48) jj-. PLant Foop—4? The elements which become deficient in the soil through long cultivation and the removal of crops are nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. Any one familiar with the composition of commercial fertilizers knows that it is these elements in some combination which give them value. Nitrogen must be changed into the form of nitrate; that is, some combi- nation of nitric acid with lime or potash, making a neutral salt, before green- leaved plants can take it as food. Potassium must be changed by oxidation into potash in order that it may be dissolved in the soil-water. Phosphorus must be in the form of phosphoric acid, for the element phosphorus burns up at once on exposure to the air. It is generally combined with calcium, making the phosphate of lime, an insoluble compound, which is rendered soluble by sulphuric acid; and thus gives us a superphosphate of lime, which is available to plant life. Phosphoric acid is a compound of phosphorus, oxygen and hydrogen, but in phosphates the metallic bases replace the hydrogen. Nitrification, or the transformation of organic matter into nitrates so that green plants can get nitrogen, is carried on by minute organisms in the soil, and the life of these organisms depends on the presence of the organic matter in the soil; making it, as we have seen, a living, rather than a dead soil. Of this process of nitrification we will treat more fully further on. CHAPTER VI. SOURCES OF FERTILIZING MATERIALS. SOURCES OF NITROGEN. Nitrogen, as we have seen, is a gaseous substance which makes up for- fifths of the atmosphere, mingling with and diluting the oxygen so that it can be breathed, but never combining with it under ordinary conditions. It is the oxygen of the air upon which animals depend for respiration, but it must be diluted for this purpose, and hence the nitrogen is mixed with it, though nitrogen takes no part itself in respiration. Plants even, which need nitrogen as food, will die if confined in nitrogen gas alone. Ammonia is a hydrate of nitrogen which acts as a base in connection with acids. Thus with sul- phuric acid it forms the sulphate of ammonia, with carbonic acid, the car- bonate of ammonia, which is the ammonia we smell so strongly escaping from a heating manure pile exposed to the weather. Manufacturers of fertilizers always like to print the percentage of ammonia on their bags rather than that of the actual nitrogen, as the figures look larger. When you find the per- centage of ammonia thus on a bag you can get the true amount of nitrogen by multiplying the ammonia per cent. by 0.8235. Thus if the bag has 2 per cent. ammonia printed on it, this means that there is but 1.647 per cent of actual nitrogen. The source from which the nitrogen comes is a very important matter to the purchaser of the fertilizer, since chemical analysis may show that there is a large percentage of nitrogen present, but at the same time it may be almost entirely useless because in an unavailable form, and all that chemical analysis can tell you is that it is there. Hence it is important to know from what (48) SOURCES OF FERTILIZING MATERIALS—49 source the nitrogen is obtained. Pulverized leather scraps, hoofs, horn shavings, hair, will show on analysis a good percentage of nitrogen, but in such a form that plants cannot use it, being insoluble. Hence the source of the nitrogen is, perhaps, of more importance than the actual amount. There is at all times a very small and uncertain amount of nitrogen in the form of ammonia in the air. It is believed that plants do, to some extent, absorb some of the ammonia, but it has never been proved that they do. But there are varying amounts brought to the soil and within reach of the roots in the rain water. Then, too, during thunder storms, some of the nitrogen of the air is converted by electricity into nitrous acid, which is further transformed into nitric acid, and this in the soil forms the nitrates of lime, magnesia and other bases. It has been stated that this formation of nitric acid in the air is the only source of the combined nitrogen in the earth, but later studies of the work of soil bacteria have developed the fact that there are other and more powerful agencies at work in the getting of the free nitrogen into a form that plants can use. It has been estimated that in this country about six pounds per acre of nitrogen are brought to the soil annually in the rainfall, in the forms of ammonia and nitric acid. But the greatest source of the nitrogen in the soil is in the black, organic decay which we call humus. A soil well filled with the decay of plant and animal life will have a large nitrogen content, while a soil from which all the humus has been used up, or burnt out, will have very little nitrogen. This accounts for the superior fertility of freshly cleared land. It is true that the nitrogen contained in the humus is not at once in a condition to serve as plant food, but it furnishes food for millions of microscopic plants known as bac- teria, which are the means of carrying on the process called nitrification, through which the organic matter is broken down and its ammonia changed into nitrites and then into nitrates, which last is the form in which green plants can use it. A soil, then, which contains a large percentage of humus may be properly called a_ living soil, while one in which there is no humus, and from which the nitrifying bacteria have been starved out and have died, may be well called a dead soil. Nitrogen is an essential element in all living matter and the absence of nitrogen means death either in animals or plants. From whence, then, are we to get the various combinations of nitrogen needed in our complete fertilizers? It is always the element that gets away from us most rapidly in the soil, for if it is not taken up by plants when it gets into the available form of a nitrate, it quickly leaches away from the soil, and therefore we need to frequently renew the nitrogen in the soil. 50—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING. All organic matter, as we have seen, contains nitrogen. But this can only be used by plants after the substance has completely decayed and the soil bacteria have transformed it into a nitrate. The rapidity, then, with which any organic matter decays, determines its value in plant feeding. Some forms, as we have noted, such as leather scraps, horn meal, etc., decay so very slowly that their nitrogen is of little use to plants, while other forms decay rapidly and soon come into an available shape. Pulverized fish scraps from the fish oil factories along the coast, or from the refuse of the fish canning houses, form a valuable source of organic nitrogen. The article made by the regular fish oil factories along the Atlantic coast is a richer article than that made from the refuse of the pack- ing houses, since the whole of the fish, after the oil is extracted, goes into the scrap, which is ground from the pressed cake. In some sections there are other refuse matters from the sea used in the making of fertilizers, such as crabs, but this cuts a very small figure in the general market and is available to few. One of the very best sources of organic nitrogen is the blood from the great abbatoirs, or slaughter houses, where animal products are packed for com- merce. It is not only rich in nitrogen, but it is in a form that decays very rapidly in the soil, and soon reaches an available form. It is important, however, to note the character of the dried blood offered for sale, since it may contain all the way from 6 to 14 or 15 per cent. of nitrogen. The best grade is always of a red color. If black, it shows that it has been charred in the drying, and has assumed more the character of leather, hence is less readily decayed, and has lost some nitrogen. Probably the cheapest form in which organic nitrogen can be bought, at least in the South, is in cotton seed meal. This contains between 6 and 7 per cent. of nitrogen, and a smaller percentage of phosphoric acid and potash. The exact percentages will be found in the table of analyses of the various fertilizing materials, given elsewhere. It is now largely used as a food for cattle, and when used in small quantities, in connection with carbonaceous foods, forms a valuable part of a ration. But there is a practice becoming common in the South, of feeding cattle on a ration entirely of cotton seed meal and cotton seed hulls, which is mischievous, resulting in very inferior beef, and in butter but little better than oleomargarine. Properly used the cotton seed meal is a valuable addition to a food ration, and it is only the bad method which I have uniformly opposed. Cotton seed meal decays rapidly in the soil, soon becomes nitrified and available to plants. In some parts of the country linseed meal is used to some extent as a fertilizer, but as a rule the price is prohibitive for this pur- SouRcEs oF FERTILIZING MATERIALS—)1 pose ; it should be used only as a stock food, and thus enrich the home-made manure. Castor pomace is a valuable source of nitrogen in limited localities. It usually contains nearly 6 per cent. of nitrogen, decays rapidly in the soil and is soon available as plant food. Another product of the great western slaughter houses is tankage. This is composed of the dried and pulverized waste matters from the slaughtering of animals, and is of a very varying nature. One form of the more concen- trated tankage may contain as much as 12 or more per cent. of nitrogen, while other samples will not have more than 4 to 5 per cent. of nitrogen, but a larger percentage of phosphoric acid than the concentrated form. The price of tankage, of course, varies with its composition, and a low-priced article is always one that has the least percentage of nitrogen. It is, therefore, im- portant to look after the analysis claimed for each sample. About the most worthless form in which one can get organic nitrogen is in the meal made from leather scraps.. Analysis will show that this con- tains a large percentage of nitrogen, yet it is almost worthless to the farmer, since the leather so long resists decay in the soil. The making of a fertilizer in which leather is used as a source of nitrogen, should be looked upon simply as a fraud. In the same class should be placed wool and hair waste, which can only be made available by dissolving in sulphuric acid. From the fat rendering establishments, where the dead animals from the large cities are utilized, there comes dried meat; which has value for nitrogen nearly as high as that of the dried blood from the slaughter houses. Formerly there was a rich deposit of natural guano with a very high per- centage of nitrogen on the Chincha Islands, on the coast of Peru. But this was long ago exhausted, and though we have occasionally so-called Peruvian guano offered for sale, it is far inferior to the old article; as it comes from localities where rain has washed out a large part of the nitrogen, and consists mainly of insoluble phosphate of lime. The exhaustion of the old Peruvian guano beds gave the first great impulse to the manufacture of commercial fer- tilizers, so that now the natural guanos make little show on the market, and being largely of a phosphatic nature are mainly used by the manufacturers of fertilizers. When any of these organic matters, containing nitrogen, decay, the first result is the formation of the hydride of nitrogen, or ammonia, from the com- bination of hydrogen and nitrogen. But green leaved plants, as a rule, do not use nitrogen in the form of ammonia. The bacteria in the soil which bring about what is known as nitrification, break down the ammonia and form the nitrogen into a nitrite. Another form of bacteria then takes up the work 52—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING and transforms the nitrite into a nitrate, which is the form in which green leaved plants use nitrogen. Ammonia is manufactured as a by product in the making of illuminating gas, and also in the manufacture of bone charcoal for the sugar refiners. This is the source of the article in commerce known as the sulphate of ammonia. Large quantities are now made also in the manufacture of coke for the iron furnaces. In the sulphate the ammonia is in a very concentrated form, and will probably become more largely used as the price is reduced; though with many plants is seems at times to exert a poisonous influence. It is common to say that cotton seed meal and other organic matters have a certain percentage of ammonia, but there is really no ammonia there until the organic matter has decayed and the combination of the nitrogen has been made with the hydrogen. The more correct way would be to give the percentage of nitrogen in the matter which forms ammonia in decaying. But, as we have said, the figures for ammonia look larger, and hence manufacturers like to put it as ammonia in their claims. Pure sul- phate of ammonia contains 21.2 per cent. of nitrogen. In recent years there have been large discoveries of nitrogen in the form of a nitrate of soda, which is formed in large masses in certain parts of the western coast of South America where no rain falls. This is now probably the cheapest source of nitrogen for fertilizing purposes. We have seen that green leaved plants use nitrogen in the form of a nitrate, and that the organic nitrogen must be changed into this form in the soil before they use it. The nitrate of soda being already in the nitrate form is at once available for plant food. As it rapidly leaches from the soil in the rainfall this form should only be used while plants are in active growth. If applied during the dormant season much if not all of it will be lost by leaching. In making a complete fertilizer mixture, if nitrate of soda is used, it should always be ac- conipanied by a due proportion of organic nitrogen to ccntinue the supply after the nitrate is used up. The nitrate is useful in the first growth of the plant while the nitrifica- tion of the organic matter is going on, as it is immediately soluble and quite concentrated. It is often sold under the name of Chili saltpetre, (ordinary saltpetre being the nitrate of potash) and contains from 15 to 1A per cent. of nitrogen. Professor Voorhees, in his book on fertilizers, welt says that “The practical point, and the one of prime importance to the farmer, is, then, to know how to estimate the relative value or usefulness of these different products, what is the rate of availability as compared with the nitrate, and thus the relative advantage of purchasing the one or the other, at the ruling market prices. Relative values, however, cannot be assigned as yet, though careful studies of the problem have been made, chiefly by what are known as Sources OF FERTILIZING MATERIALS—53 ‘vegetation tests’; that is, tests which show the actual amounts of nitrogen that plants can obtain from nitrogenous products of different kinds, when grown under known and controlled conditions. The results so far obtained, while only serving as a guide, indicate that when nitrate is rated at 100 per cent. blood and cotton seed meal are about 70 per cent., dried and ground fish and hoof meal 65 per cent., bone and tankage 60 per cent., and leather, ground horn and wool waste as low as 2 per cent. to as high as 30 per cent. These figures furnish a fair basis for comparing the different materials, when used for the same purpose. If, for example, the increased yield of oats due to the application of nitrate of soda is 1,000 pounds, the yield from blood and cotton seed meal would be 700 pounds, the yield from dried ground fish and hoof meal would be 650 pounds, from bone and tankage 600 pounds, and from leather, ground horn and wool waste from 20 to 300 pounds.” As re- gards the last we are of the opinion that the increase would be nearer nothing at all. While these figures may be useful, we would suggest that the cultivator cannot depend upon the same results in practice for the varying conditions under which the plant food is applied, and the atmospheric condition after the application, might easily make the soluble nitrate the least productive. The practice of all good cultivators is to use the nitrate to some extent in a complete fertilizer mixture, but to place the main reliance for nitrogen for the crop upon the organic forms, since all of the nitrate of soda that is not used at once is rapidly lost to the soil and plants, and the cultivator who de- pends for nitrogen on the nitrate alone will often be disappointed in the result. In a number of experiments made at different Stations it has been shown that sulphate of ammonia, in a mixed fertilizer with the muriate of potash, acts asa plant poison. In fact, in certain conditions of the soil, it seems that sulphate of ammonia is about as likely to do harm to the crop as to benefit it. Even when the sulphate of ammonia is simply mixed with stable manure it has given decidedly injurious effects. When mixed with the muriate of potash there is a combination of the chemicals and the chloride of ammonia is formed, which is injurious to vegetation. Another source of organic nitro- gen which is available to the farmers in some localities, is the sea weed which accumulates on the sea beach after storms, and which is largely used by the farmers near the ocean. The sea weeds decay rapidly and furnish large per- centages of nitrogen and potash, but are lacking in phosphoric acid. They are so rich in potash that some authorities rank them among potassic manures, and when mixed with a due percentage of phosphates they furnish a fairly complete fertilizer. One great advantage in the use of sea weeds is the fact 54—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING that they bring to the soil no weed seeds. The salt which they contain may act as a solvent of matters in the soil of value to plant life, and be to some extent serviceable in destroying fungi and insects in the soil. BARN AND STABLE MANURES. The greatest source of organic nitrogen on the farm is, of course, the manure made from the droppings of domestic animals. The care and proper use of the home-made deposit lies at the very foundation of successful farm- ing. No purchase of commercial fertilizers can fully atone financially for a waste of this home-made article. And yet there is no one thing on the farm generally so badly managed, and subjected to so much waste, as the barnyard and stable manure. It has been estimated that if the manure annually pro- duced by all the domestic animals kept in the United States was properly saved, its total value would be over two thousand millions of dollars. Prof. Roberts of Cornell has estimated that on a farm on which are kept 4 horses, 20 cows, 50 sheep and 10 pigs, there should be produced during seven months of the winter and colder part of the year at least $250 worth of manure, valuing it at the rate paid for phosphoric acid, potash and nitrogen in commercial fertilizers. And it is further estimated that one-third of the value of all the manure made is annually lost through bad management. This means an annual loss of nearly seven hundred millions of dollars in the United States, or an average annual loss on each farm of $83.33. This means that to keep up the waste made from selling crops this loss makes necessary the purchase of that much more of plant food to replace the loss, if fertility is to be main- tained. Every ton of hay sold from the farm removes plant food to the value of $5.10 if bought in a commercial fertilizer. Every ton of wheat carries olf from the farm plant food to the value of $7.75. Or, as Dr. Armsby has said, “A farmer who sells, for example, $10 worth of wheat sells with it about $2,58 worth of the fertility of his soil. In other words, when he receives his $10 this amount does not represent the net receipts of the transaction, for he has parted with $2.58 of his capital, that is, of the stored up fertility of his soil; and if he does not take this into account he makes the same mis- take a merchant would should he estimate his profits by the amount of cash which he received and neglect to take an account of stock.” But if, instead of selling all the products of the farm, a large part is retained and fed thereon to animals and the droppings carefully saved, a large part of this fertility is retained on the farm. Then, too, where the entire product of a farm is not only fed upon it, but some food which was grown on other land is purchased for animals, the farm may be kept improving without the purchase of plant SouRCES OF FERTILIZING MATERTAL—55 food in any other way. Such, however, can seldom be the case except in limited localities where the butter dairy is the sole business. Hence, in the great majority of cases, it is necessary to supplement the home-made accumulation with commercial fertilizers. But the farmer who neglects to save and care for in the best manner all the home-made manure is neglecting the true source of riches on the farm. A great deal of the neglect of home-made manure has doubtless arisen from the ease with which fertilizers can be gotten on the market, and over large portions of the country, especially in the Cotton States, there has been an utter neglect of stock feed- ing, and an entire dependence on the commercial fertilizers. Year after year the same crop is planted on the same land, and the chances are taken as to the result from the dribbling of a little fertilizer in the furrows. This gambling in fertilizers has brought ruin to many a fair acre in the South, where proper farming and the feeding of cattle would have brought fertility and riches to soil and farmer. The constant use of commercial fertilizers on the soil, and the clean culture of the crop, has robbed the soil of its humus, and put it into a bad mechanical condition, in which the fertilizers no longer have the power to produce the results they would under different soil condi- tions. One of the greatest values of barnyard manure is in the humus-making material combined in it, which makes it more retentive of moisture, improves its mechanical condition, and furnishes food for the microscopic plants that carry on the process of nitrification in the soil and prevent its becoming a dead soil. Into this lifeless condition much of the cotton land of the South has now been changed, and men say “we cannot grow good crops because our land is poor,” when it is poor farming which has made it poor. If the farm ever was fertile, the acknowledgement that it is now poor is evidence that the owner is responsible for its condition. But there are various qualities of the farm manure as well as of commer- cial fertilizers. Manure from half starved animals and those fed on low grade foods that merely serve to keep life in them, has very little value. ‘The quality of the manure made varies with the quality of the food fed. Rich food makes rich manure, and vice versa. The dried excrement of horses and cattle is nearly one-half the amount of the dry food consumed. One hundred pounds of dry matter in the food consumed by horses will make 210 pounds of manure, containing 77.5 pounds of moisture. Add to this the weight of the bedding, about six and one-half pounds per day, in order to get the total amount of the manure. It has been estimated that a well fed work horse will produce 50 pounds of manure per day, or six and a half tons per year, that can be saved. The manure of cows and neat cattle will contain on an average 87.5 per cent. of water. A steer, weithing 1,000 pounds and con- 56—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING suming 27 pounds of dry matter per day, would produce about 20 tons of manure a year. A sheep will produce about three-fourths of a ton of manure yearly, and a pig from two to three tons. The following table gives the analysis of the various manures and their value per ton: Water Nitrogen Phos. Acid Potash anion Sheep ,.,.,- «,-1-:- 59.52 per cent. | 0.768 per cent. | 0.391 per cent. | 0.591 per cent. | $3.30 Calves... ....% 77.73 per cent. | 0.497 per cent. | 0.172 per cent. | 0.532 per cent. | 2.18 aS a ks cies oe 74.13 per cent. | 0.840 per cent. | 0.390 per cent. | 0.320 per cent. | 3.29 COWS .c0'<% 75.25 per cent. | 0.426 per cent. | 0.290 per cent. | 0.440 per cent. | 2.02 Horses ...... 48.69 per cent. | 0.490 per cent. | 0.260 per cent. | 0.480 per cent. | 2.21 Hens «44004 56.00 per cent. | 0.80 to 2 per|0.50 to 2 per|0.80 to 0.90 cent. cent. per cent. 7.07 These figures will not represent the value of ordinary manure allowed to leach away its value under the eaves, but of manure from highly fed animals, carefully preserved, liquid and solid, and protected from rain and firing. The urine is the most valuable part of the excrement of animals. The solid manure contains the undigested part of the food, and matter that is in a more or less insoluble state, while the urine contains the matters that have been fully digested and which are in a soluble condition. The composition of the urine, like that of the solid portion, varies with the age of the animals and the quality of the food consumed. There is a far higher percentage of nitro- gen in the urine and less phosphoric acid. In fact, the urine of horses and cattle contains hardly any at all. But it abounds in potash and soda. It is always best to use it mixed with the solid manure, which contains phosphates. Water that has leached from a pile of mixed manure is always a better fertil- izer than urine alone, as it has taken up the phosphates with the other con- stituents. As we have said, the composition of the manure depends largely on the kind of food used. If the food is of a nitrogenous nature and is easily digested, the nitrogen in the urine will greatly predominate; but if the food is imperfectly digested, the larger percentage may be in the solid dung. A horse fed on poor hay will show more nitrogen in the dung than in the urine. But a small portion of the nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash supplied in the food is assimilated and retained in the animal body. Hence the value of the manure depends very largely on the nitrogen content of the food and its richness in the other forms of plant food. With animals which have com- pleted their growth and made their bony skeleton, and which are simply hold- ing their own as regards weight, neither losing nor gaining, the manurial con- stituents of the food are practically all returned in the manure. Figuring SouRCES OF FERTILIZING MATERIALS—57? from this base, it has been shown that the manure from feeding a ton of wheat bran will have a value of $12.50, and fed to milch cows will have 75 per cent. of this value. While no such value is ever recovered, even with the best treat- ment of the manure, these figures show the importance of the best care, since the most costly part, the nitrogen, gets away so rapidly. The chief value of the home-made manure is in the nitrogen it contains, and in the capacity it has for the nitrification of its organic matter in the soil. It is this organic matter in the stable and barnyard manure which gives it its chief advantage over the commercial fertilizers. We can get nitrogen in a far more available form in the fertilizers, but will lose the beneficial mechanical effect of the organic matter in the manure. Still, although admitting the great value of the home-made manure as a source of nitrogen, and the importance of saving it in the best manner, I have long been of the opinion that there is: too much of a disposition on the part of some writers to make a sort of fetich of a manure heap, and to advise the application of more labor than the manure is worth to the piling, turning and composting of manure. The manure of the farm, while a valuable thing, and an article not to be wasted, has not a value that will repay*the putting of the amount of labor on it which some ad- vise. Take care of the manure, and get it as soon as possible, out on the land where plants are waiting to use it. Ona farm on which a proper rotation is _ practiced there is always a place to spread the manure. In the North, where it is impracticable to haul out the manure during the winter months, the best way to save it is to haye all animals in box stalls, or in covered barnyards, with plenty of litter, allow the manure to be packed down under foot, and let it remain undisturbed. In this condition it will not heat seriously and will lose less than in any other way. But, by all means, abandon the silly practice of throwing it out the stable windows, in piles, to heat and wash away in the rain. The extent to which the keeping of live stock and the saving of manure is neglected in the South Atlantic Cotton States would be amazing to the farmers of the North and West, who have so long been brought up to consider the feeding of stock and the handling of manure a necessary part of farm life. Thousands of cotton farms in this section have no stock on them but the mules that till the crop, and in many cases even the provender for these is bought and hauled to the place. There is evidence in many sections, how- ever, of improvement in this respect, and these conditions are usually found among the tenant “croppers” rather than among the farm owners. Still, the great need of the South Atlantic States is live stock. It has been stated by competent authority that the States of North and South Carolina grow three bales of cotton for every cow kept, while Texas, which produces the largest 58—Crorp GROWING AND Crop FEEDING part of the cotton crop, raises three cows to every bale of cotton she produces. Until the farmers of the South Atlantic cotton country change all this and get to the same proportion between stock and cotton there will be no real and permanent advancement in the development of their agricultural capa- bilities. No matter how valuable and convenient the commercial fertilizers may be, nor how much they may accomplish for the improvement of the soil in the hands of the wise farmer, they will never, with the great mass of the farmers, avail as much for permanent improvement as home-made manures. The great evil connected with the failure to grow forage and feed live stock in the South, is the continuation of the ruinous credit system. If our farming was more diversified and systematic, and there was not that sole dependence on the cotton crop, which is still largely the case, notwithstanding the great improvement made in many places; there would be sources of in- come from the stock that would enable the farmer to get on a cash basis in his farming, and thus immensely reduce the cost of the cotton crop to the grower. Ina section where the most valuable forage crop is at the same time a soil improver, and where nature has been lavish in the great variety of food crops that can be produced for the feeding of cattle andthe accumulation of manure, the cities and towns are supplied with beef from the west simply because there are no cattle on the farms to make beef from. The cotton farmers are annually buying nitrogen in their fertilizers because they neglect the sources from which they could get nitrogen without money and without price; and not only get it free of cost but make a profit in the getting of it. Millions of dollars are spent in the cotton states of the Atlantic border for nitrogen, which, if spent for live stock and the growing of the cow pea, would remain to bless the land with fertility and swell the purse of the farmer. While an individual may here and there be able to show a profit in his crops grown without the aid of the domestic animals; the result on the community at large is poverty of soil and purse. Then, too, farm life without stock loses one of its chief attractions to the young, for boys, as a rule, are fond of ani- mals; and if we want to keep the boys on the farm and to have them devote their energies to the improvement of the land, we must make homes instead of mere cotton fields, and a farm without cattle and other stock is far less homelike than one on which due attention is paid to these sources of profit and pleasure. We do not blame a boy for wanting to get away from a farm where he has only a mule to drive and a pair of wheels to ride on, and the greatest difficulty we have in inducing young men to study scientific agricul- ture lies in the fact that they have never seen any real farming done at home, and they have come to consider the life of the farm hopeless; so the young blood of the South, more than of any other section, is rushing away from the SouRCES OF FERTILIZING MATERIALS—d9 farm to the factories and workshops, and the men who should be the means of building up the waste places are abandoning the farms to desolation and the negro. If this book is instrumental in any way in inducing some of these farmers to adopt a different method, it will be well worth all he labor that has been expended upon it. NO NEED FOR BUYING NITROGEN. While the saving and using of all the nitrogenous manures made on the farm is an important part of the farm economy, the farmer who farms intelli- gently and practices a proper rotation of crops, need never buy an ounce of nitrogen in any shape for the ordinary farm crops. In the case of the market gardener, on limited areas, and with crops of greater value, it is, of course, important to heavily fertilize his acres. But in grain and grass farming, the farmer who realizes what the legumes will do for him need never expend a penny for nitrogen, and in fact, can not only get all he needs without cost, but can make a profit in the getting of it. And here is the main use that the farmer has for the commercial fertilizers, to enable him better to practice the true method of acquiring the nitrogen that is so plentiful in the air, over every acre, in all localities. No part of the country has a monopoly of the erial nitrogen. The air is just as rich over the poorest acre in the land as over the most fertile, and the farmer on the poor farm can get it just as readily as the man whose acres are already supplied with it. While nitrogen is an essential thing to plant life, and crops cannot be grown without it, it is the only element of plant-food that we can get without buying, and the one that costs the most when we do buy it in fertilizer. Then, when we can, by a proper course of culture, get this costly article which is so much needed, and can put money in our pockets while getting it, is it not passing strange that farmers should spend money for it? LEGUMINOUS PLANTS THE TRUE SOURCE OF NITROGEN FOR THE FARMER For many years farmers knew that in some mysterious way clover and other plants of the pea family, did not only furnish forage for feeding animals, but that the land was better for having grown the crop. Only within the past few years, have scientists studied closely the way in which these plants help the soil, and even yet very little is accurately known of the exact way in which the work is done. For our present purpose, however, it is enough to know that all the legumes have the power, by means of little microscopic plants, which inhabit certain swellings or nodules on their roots, to get the 60—Crop GROWING AND CRroP FEEDING free nitrogen of the air combined and stored in the form of organic matter in the soil. We will not enter into a discussion of the exact way in which they do it; the fact is that no one knows just how it is done. But it is enough for the farmer to know that it is done, and that he can, by the growing of these plants, get a supply of material in the soil, that in its decay will give nitrogen to the succeeding crop in abundance. But the very plants that do this nitro- gen catching for him, are the greediest of consumers of the other two im- portant elements of plant-food needed in most soils, phosphorus and potash, While the careful saving and using of the farm yard manures is an important help in the getting of nitrogen in the soil, the manure is always in an insuffi- cient supply, and is poorer in the other elements than is desirable. Therefore, the most important elements which a farmer must buy in order to keep up the productivity of his soil, are phosphorus and potassium in some form. These are essential to the growth of all plants, and are especially serviceable in encouraging the growth of the legumes, and the enabling them to get more of the costly and fleeting nitrogen for us. The various experiment stations have done so much work in the study of the manurial requirements of plants, and the effects of fertilizers, that there has grown up an impression among farmers that for every crop planted, some complete mixture of fertilizers must be applied. There is no doubt that the annual application of commer- cial fertilizers will increase the crop usually grown; but true farming is the getting of good crops at the least margin of expense consistent with the keeping up and improving the condition of the soil. It is not merely growing big crops, but the most profitable crops, too. If a farmer spends $10 for a fertilizer that gives him $10 worth more corn, he is simply buying corn at the market price. He would better have left that $10 worth alone and bought it for less labor. | CHAPTER VII. PHOSPHORUS, ITS SOURCES AND USE IN PLANT FEEDING. The second important element in the nutrition of plants and the matur- ing of crops is phosphorus. This element, like the other elements which enter into the feeding of plants, is never used as a pare element, but always in the form of phosphoric acid. This is a highly oxidized compound of hy- drogen and phosphorus, and forms, with alkaline bases such as lime, etc., salts known as phosphates. The most commonly available form is:the phosphate of lime. This is a large constituent of the bones of all animals, and is found in nature in the phosphatic rocks and coprolites. In the basic process of steel making, large amounts of phosphates are separated from the iron ore and left in the furnace slag, and this slag is one of the important sources of phosphoric acid for fertilizing purposes. In many of the sea islands where there is a heavy rainfall, the guano deposits have been largely composed of the phosphate of lime, the nitrogen having been washed away. Large deposits ot phosphatic rock are found all along our South Atlantic coast, and in the Mississippi valley and elsewhere. The origin of these deposits has been a matter of much discussion among geologists. The idea generally prevails among most farmers that these are the petrified bones of extinct animals, but this is far from being correct, though there are certainly many fossil remains found associated with the phosphatic rocks. Phosphatic guano is certainly the remains of the ex- crement and food refuse of sea birds, and coprolites and phosphatic nodules are thought to be the remains of animal excrement. But, whatever their origin, the importance of the deposits has long been recognized; for the replenishing of our soils with phosphates is one of the greatest of the problems that confronts the cultivator, since in all cultivation, and in the raising of domestic animals, the phosphates are continually being removed from the farm. Unlike the nitrogen we cannot get phosphates.from the air, and there are but two ways in which the loss to the farm in phosphates carried off from it can be made good. We must either feed on the farm food grown elsewhere, or we must buy the phosphates when they are deficient. Inasmuch as the localities are few where the feeding of purchased food can be made'a profitable (61) 62—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING part of the farm economy, the renewing of the phosphates in the soil becomes a very important matter. There has long been an impression among farmers that phosphoric acid from animal bones is more valuable than phosphoric acid from rock phosphates or other sources. But this is not the case. A superphosphate made from bones will contain some nitrogen, and hence, will have that additional value; but its phosphoric acid is not a whit different from the phosphoric acid from other sources. The only point of importance to the farmer is the percentage of the phosphoric acid-which is soluble in water, and is hence immediately available for plant feeding. In the natural state, the phosphoric acid of bones, rock or furnace slag is insoluble. Then if the rock is finely pulverized, and the bone (if finely pulverized), the bone will be the more quickly available of the two, because of the readiness with which it decays in the soil; and the fact that the raw bone carries with it a consider- able percentage of nitrogen, while the phosphatic acid rock has none of this. But when treated with sulphuric acid and made soluble, the acid of the rock is just the same as the acid of the bones treated in the same way. But the prejudice in favor of the bones is such that it. is a common practice among the manufacturers of fertilizers to call their articles bone phosphate, when, in fact, no bones have ever been used in its manufacture. The great source of the phosphates used in this country is the phosphatic rock mined from the land or dredged from the river beds in South Carolina. Large quantities are also mined in Florida, which are classified as “soft,” “rock,” “pebble” and “bowlder” phosphates. There are also “apatites” from Canada, and a very fine quality of phosphatic rock from Tennessee, and re- cently a deposit has been found in the Juniata valley in Pennsylvania. When treated with sulphuric acid to render them soluble these are known as acid phosphate, and this forms almost the entire source of the phosphorie acid used in the making of fertilizers, though some are still made from the refuse bone charcoal which has been used in the refining of sugar. A minor source, as we have said, is the slag from the manufacture of steel by the basic process. This is known as “basic slag,” “Thomas slag” and “odorless phosphate.” The quantity produced in this country of this last, is yet too small to have any great effect on the market. Much of the tankage from the Western slaughter houses has large percentages of bone associated with the nitrogenous matters, and this, too, is frequently treated with acid to render it soluble. Untreated tankage is more valuable for its nitrogen than its phos- phoric acid. Bones are also some times steamed, by which means a large part of the nitrogen is extracted, which has the effect of increasing the percentage of phosphoric acid in the product. Steamed bone may contain as much as 28 per cent. of phosphoric acid and very little, if any, nitrogen. It PHospuorvus, Its Sources AND UsE IN PLANT IEEDING—63 will, therefore, have a larger percentage of phosphoric acid than raw bone meal, but far less nitrogen; and if the phosphoric acid is what we are after, the steamed bone is better than the raw, and the absence of nitrogen should make it cheaper. But it must be remembered that the phosphoric acid is not in an immediately soluble condition, though through the rapid decay of the bone it may soon become so. The Florida soft phosphates are not available .n the manufeture of acid phosphates, and hence, many efforts have been made to get farmers to use them in an untreated state. An article called “Natural Plant Food,” was some time ago largely advertised. This consisted almost entirely of the Florida soft phosphates, with some insoluble potash, such as is found in the green sand marl of New Jersey. It has been found that on a soil abounding in humus, and in an acid condition, the pulverized phosphatic rock sold under the name of “floats” acts very well, especially on clover and other legumes, but that liming the soil, which helps the success of the clover, renders the phosphate less effective. In some stations the insoluble phosphoric acid is given no value whatever, while at other stations it is rated at 2 cts. per pound, with the soluble at four and a half cents. What we wish particularly to impress upon the farmer, is the fact that phosphoric acid from any source is identically the same thing, and the only question that concerns him is what percentage of the article is in a soluble state, for it is this which is to give him immediate results in the crop. BONE MEAL AS A SOURCE OF PHOSPHORIC ACID. We have stated that phosphoric acid is one and the same thing no matter from what source it comes, and that the only thing to regard is the percentage of soluble acid. On this point the investigations of the Massachusetts Exper- iment Station show the following conclusions: 1. The superior VALUE which has hitherto been accorded to undis- solved bone meal as a fertilizer is due solely to the nitrogen it contains. 2. Undissolved bone meal, as a phosphate fertilizer, is no more valuable than the raw mineral phosphates (floats). 3. Hereafter it must be classed with the latter, rather than with the high grade phosphates containing available phosphoric acid. 4. As a phosphate fertilizer it yields no better results than the mineral phosphates, whether tried alone or with superphosphate, on loams or sandy soils, on soils rich or poor in phosphoric acid, whether with grains or with turnips, mustard or other cruciferous plants ; either in the first or second crop. 5. The various kinds of bone meal show no essential difference in these results. In experiments made by Wagner at Darmstadt, Germany, the phos- 64—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING phoric acid in the form of acid phosphate gave 100 pounds in the crop to every 59 pounds from the Thomas slag, and 8 pounds from the same quantity of bone meal, and in three years the results from the bone meal application were only 17 per cent of those from the acid phosphate. It has been argued by those who favor the use of bone meal that, while not so immediately availa- ble, the after results would more than make up for it. Wagner shows that even after three years it only reached to 17 per cent. of the crop produced at the same time from soluble phosphoric acid. ‘This is an important matter to the farmer, since bone meal is a far more costly article than superphosphate. Aside from the fact of the slow availability of the phosphorie acid in bone meal, there is the further fact that it is very hard to get a perfectly pure bone meal except in States where the inspection is very rigid. The writer once passed an establishment in a large Eastern seaboard city, where the sign announced “pure bone meal.” There was a “no admittance” sign at the door, but hearing machinery in operation I ventured to peep in. An Irishman who was tending a machine grinding oyster shells warned me to keep out, but I had seen all that I was after, and noted the place as one to avoid in buying bone. THOMAS SLAG, SLAG MEAL, BASIC SLAG AS A SOURCE OF PHOSPHORIC ACID. These names, and also the name “odorless phosphate” are applied to the phosphate obtained from the slag made in the process of making steel by what is known as the basic process. There is not enough of it made in this country for it to compete with the rock phosphates. The article is reduced to a fine powder and is not treated with acid. It contains usually about 20 per cent. of phosphoric acid in the form of phosphate of lime, or the same form in which it is found in the pulverized phosphate rock. Whether the phosphoric acid in this slag meal is any more readily available than that in the pulverized phosphate rock, or “floats,” is a matter not as yet well settled. In most of the country the rock phosphates are cheaper. MARLS AS A SOURCE OF PHOSPHORIC ACID. The name marl is applied to certain earthy deposits which are found along our Atlantic coast. These vary in composition from those consisting almost entirely of the carbonate of lime from the decomposition of marine shells to those like the green sand of new Jersey and the Virginia marls, some of which contain notable percentages of phosphoric acid and some pot- ash. Phosphatic marls have phosphoric acid in the form of the phos- PuHospHorus, Its Sourcrs aNpD UsrE IN PiLant Frepine—65 phate of lime as it exists in the phosphatic rocks, and it is in a similarly insoluble state, while the potash is in the form of a mineral known as glau- conite, and is also insoluble at once. Mr. Ruffin, of Virginia, whose book on calcareous manures was for many years the standard authority on the sub- ject in this country, attributed the effects of marl, which he used largely on his lands in Southeastern Virginia, to the lime it contained. But it has been shown that in every instance the most valuable marls are those which contain the largest percentages of phosphoric acid, though shell marls are also valu- able as a source of lime for certain soils. PHOSPHATIC GUANO. After the exhaustion of the rich deposits of guano in the Peruvian islands, large quantities of phosphatic guano were brought from islands in the Carribean Sea, where the soluble nitrogen had been washed out by rains, leay- ing only the insoluble phosphate of lime. These guanos are used to a con- siderable extent in a pulverized state, and answer about the same purpose as the Florida soft phosphates of recent days. Most of these guanos are not adapted to the making of acid phosphate, and they are now little used since the discovery of the great deposits of phosphatic rock in North and South Carolina, Florida and Tennessee. THE GREAT PHOSPHATE ROCK DEPOSITS The phosphatic rock that has entered more largely into the manufacture of acid phosphate is the South Carolina rock. This is pulverized and treated with sulphuric acid, and the result is the article called acid phosphate, which contains usually about 12 to 13 per cent. of soluble phosphoric acid, a smaller percentage of what is called “reverted” phosphoric acid, or acid not soluble at once in water, but soluble in citrates. The soluble and the reverted phos- phoric acid are added to make what is called the “available” phosphoric acid. Then there will always be a small portion of the phosphoric acid which is in- soluble. Some Station chemists assign no value to this in their valuations of fertilizers, while others value it at 2 cents per pound when the available is rated at 4 cents. This is the fairer valuation, since there is evidence that it does finally become available in the soil, just as the pulverized rock does. Large deposits of phosphatic rock are found also in Florida, much of which is known as “soft” phosphate, and is not available for dissolving with sulphuric acid, and strenuous efforts have been made to get it into use under the name “Natural Plant Food.” It has value, if one has time to wait on it. Another important deposit of phosphate rock has more recently been dis- 66—CropP GROWING AND Crop FEEDING covered in Central Tennessee. ‘This has a high percentage of phosphate of lime, and will become the most important point from which to get phosphoric acid in the Central Western States. Another deposit has been discovered in the Juniata Valley of Pennsylvania, but whether it will assume any com- mercial importance is not yet known. Hard phosphate rock, which will yield on dissolving with sulphuric acid a good, drillable acid phosphate will always be of more agricultural value than those not adapted to this purpose. While phosphoric acid may exist in the form of iron phosphate and of aluminum phosphate, the only form in which it is available in the manu- facture of commercial fertilizers is the phosphate of lime. This is the form in which it is found in phosphatic rock and in animal bones, and hence manu- facturers, whose product does not contain a solitary animal bone, are very fond of printing on their bags the statement that the percentage of phosphoric acid in it’is “equal to bone phosphate ;” thus leading the farmer to imagine that there are bones used in it, as they think that farmers value phosphoric acid from bones more highly than the same thing from some other source. I cannot too often repeat that it is the percentage of availability that the farmer is concerned with, and not whether it came from bones or rock. All untreated phosphates are insoluble in water, and untreated bone will become available more readily than untreated rock phos- phate, because it decays more readily, provided both are in an equally finely pulverized state. Many farmers have declared that they get as good results from the pulverized phosphates as from the acid phosphate, and in certain soils this may be the case, for the character of the soil has much to do with the rate in which the phosphoric acid in an untreated phosphate becomes available. In a soil abounding in humus, or vegetable decay, the phosphates will become soluble more readily than in a heavy, clay soil deficient in organic decay. In the porous soil, filled with humus, the oxidizing influences of the air have free access, and decay proceeds more rapidly, while the acidity of such soils also favors the change. For general purposes it is far better, how- ever, to use the acid phosphate than the lower priced pulverized rock or the iron phosphate. Professor Voorhees well says that, “In any case, animal bone, or finely ground mineral phosphates, cannot be depended upon to fully meet the needs of quick growing crops for phosphoric acid, but may answer an excellent purpose where the object is to gradually improve the soil in its content of this constituent, as well as to supply such crops as are continuous, or that grow through long periods, as, for example, meadows, pastures, and orchard and vineyard crops.” That is to say, that where you can afford to wait and where you want long-continued, slow availability, it may pay to use the more slowly available forms of phosphoric acid, but where you want the PuHospuHorus, Its SourcEs AND USE IN PLANT FEEDING—67 effect on the immediate annual crop you had better get the dissolved rock or acid phosphate. With most farmers, the question of immediate returns for the expenditure is the most important point. SOME ERRONEOUS POPULAR NAMES. In some parts of the country farmers call all commercial fertilizers “phosphate.” This is an error which all should rid themselves of as quickly as possible. The term phosphate is applicable only to compounds of phos- phoric acid and a base, making what is called a salt. Thus the phosphate of lime is a salt composed of a certain number of parts of lime with phosphoric acid. A commercial fertilizer in which the phosphoric acid is only one of the constituents cannot correctly be called a phosphate. It is simply a fertilizing mixture in which phosphoric acid is one of the constituents. The proper term to apply to all mixed goods is commercial fertilizer. Then, too, the popular name “acid phosphate” as applied to the dissolved phosphate rock is not strictly correct. Phosphate is the original condition in which the phosphoric acid is found in the rock. When dissolved in sulphuric acid it becomes a superphosphate. But the term “acid phosphate” has be- come so fixed in popular use that it answers all purposes, and suits our Ameri- can liking for brevity better than the longer word, superphosphate. Super- phosphates, whether made from rock, bones or bone charcoal, are identical, varying only in the percentage of phosphoric acid with the amount in the article from which they are made. Hence a superphosphate made from bones will have a higher percentage of phosphoric acid than one from rock, but one per cent. in the one is just as good as one per cent. in the other. Acid phos- phate is always better when freshly made than after being stored for a long time, since there is a tendency to reversion to a less soluble form in long standing, and there is a decrease of the soluble and an increase of the form soluble only in ammonium citrate. Acid phosphate, then, which has been kept over a season, is less immediately available than a freshly made article. This takes place more readily in superphosphates made from the mineral phosphates than in those made from bones or bone charcoal. Superphos- phates made from bone and bone charcoal are more uniform than those from mineral phosphates, and their phosphoric acid is nearly all soluble, while those from mineral phosphates may run all the way from 12 to 14 per cent. in the South Carolina, to 16 or even 18 per cent. in the Tennessee. Super- phosphates from raw animal bone usually have about 12 per cent, available phosphoric acid, and about 5 per cent. insoluble, but having also a percentage of ammonia, they have a higher value commercially than the dissolved rock, but their agricultural value may be no higher. 68—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING The writer has frequent inquiries from farmers who are anxious to know whether the free sulphuric acid that they are told remains in the acid phos- phate from the rock, will be injurious. The fact is there is seldom, if ever, any such acid in a well-made superphosphate, and even if there was it would at once seek some base in the soil and be changed to a neutral salt, either the sulphate of lime, potash or magnesia, according as one or the other may be present in the soil. It has been found that where superphosphates have long been used freely the phosphoric acid will accumulate in the soil to such an extent that further applications have no effect. This has been the case in a large section of Eastern North Carolina, where the farmers say that they no longer get any returns from the application of phosphates to their cotton crop. The fact is that the soil holds on to phosphoric acid longer than anything else in the way of plant food, and does not allow it to leach away as the nitrogen is apt to do, but keeps it there till the crops call for it. Hence it is easy to see that in making liberal applications of phosphates, whether merely pulverized bone or rock or dissolved phosphate, we are in no danger of serious loss, but can depend on any surplus staying there till wanted by the crops. Professor Voorhees well says, “The real object of making it soluble is to enable its better distribution. If it were possible to as cheaply prepare the dicalcic (or reverted) form as the soluble, it would, perhaps, be quite as useful from the standpoint of availability. After the soluble is distributed in the soil, it is fixed there by combining with the lime and other minerals present.” It is thought that it at once assumes the reverted form, and that in the presence of an abundance of lime may even become insoluble. The solubility of the phosphoric acid lasts much longer in a light soil deficient in organic matter, but even there it is fixed rapidly enough to prevent serious loss. Chemical analysis of the drainage waters seldom shows any loss of phosphoric acid. THE VALUE OF INSOLUBLE PHOSPHATES. In the valuation of commercial fertilizers, as we have noted, some of the Experiment Stations place no commercial value on the insoluble phosphoric acid in a fertilizer. We have long been satisfied from our own experience that this is an error, at least so far as the agricultural and crops-producing value of the insoluble phosphate is concerned. Years ago, in farming on a large scale, we found that we did get the happiest results from the use of the phosphatic guanos from the Carribean islands in which the phosphoric acid, was all insoluble. True, we did not get the same immediate results as fromthe use of the dissolved acid phosphate, but the final result was as good and more lasting, and when these insoluble forms of phosphoric acid were PuHospHorvs, Its SourcES AND USE IN PLANT FEEDING—69 used on the wheat crop, we never failed to get large returns in the luxuriant stands of clover that followed, though the effect on the wheat crop direct was not so apparent as when the acid phosphate was used. But we invariably had more difficulty in getting a good stand of clover after the use of the acid phos- phate than we did after the use of the insoluble phosphoric acid. In our case stock and stock food was the chief interest, and the wheat was only regarded as a means for paying the expense of getting the land in clover. Where im- mediate results only are sought it may be best to use the dissolved phosphate, but where final results in the clover and grass are of more importance, then it will be far cheaper and perhaps better to use simply the pulverized rock, or what is known as “floats.” As we have often said, where one can afford to wait for the results he can get them with less expenditure of money in the use of pulverized rock than in the dissolved article. ‘This experience has been verified by some experiments made at the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station and published in a recent bulletin of that Station. They state that the best results were obtained, in the long run at least, from the use of the insoluble phosphates. Not having this bulletin at hand we cannot quote from it direct, but believe that we have given the sum of their results. The fact is that no chemist can discover just what is taking place in the soil, even with what may be put there in what he calls a perfectly soluble state. The soil is a wonderful laboratory, in which the forces of nature are always at work, making new combinations and bringing about changes in what we put there. The carbonic acid of the rain water is nature’s great breaker up of combinations and former of new ones, and what exists in the soil in one state today may be in a very different oné tomorrow. It is always safe, then, for the farmer to question his soil and to accept the results it gives him, for he ean find thus, for himself, things that no chemist can discover. In certain sections of Eastern North Carolina observant farmers have long since found that they got no results for the use of phosphoric acid in any form, but that nitrogen and potash always gave them good results. Subsequent investiga- tions by the Department of Agriculture have demonstrated that these farmers are right, and that on their lands the chief need is for nitrogen and potash. Then, since by good farming with the legumes they can get all the nitrogen they need, the farmers on lands where phosphatic marls and rocks are found, are in that happy condition where they need to purchase but a single form of plant food in order to make and keep their lands perennially productive. There may be other sections North and South, where similar conditions pre- vail, and this makes it all the more important that farmers should experiment to determine the manurial needs of their soils. How this is done we have tried to explain elsewhere. CHAPTER VIII POTASH. Potash is the result of the oxidation of the element potassium, which is one of the metallic elements. In former days all the potash available for manurial purposes was that which is contained in the farm manures and in wood ashes. These are still valuable sources so far as they go, but they are totally insufficient for the demands of modern agriculture. It is a wonderful fact in the economy of nature that stores are provided to come into use as the demand for them arises. The vast deposits of coal were not discovered so long as the forest met all the requirements of man for fuel, but as the de- mand came the supply was at hand to meet it. Just so with the potash. With the great call for this material for the feeding of plants on our long cultivated soils, there was discovered a vast deposit of potash in the salt mines of Germany, in the form of sulphates and chlorides of potash. These mines are now the great source of the world’s supply of potash, and it has been found that the deposit extends over a much larger area there than was formerly sup- posed, and that the supply is practically inexhaustible. Doubtless if the German supply should fail there will be discovered other deposits, to redeem the promise to mankind that seed time and harvest shall not fail. POTASH AN ESSENTIAL PLANT FOOD. Experiments, carefully conducted, have shown that potash is one of the things which plants cannot grow without. In a soil or a solution entirely free from potash a seed will germinate and grow to the extent of the potash stored in the seed itself, but when that is used up the plant perishes. In the cultivation of farm crops it has been found that potash is more slowly ex- hausted from the soil than other forms of plant food, since its office mainly consists in the building up of the woody structure and cellular parts of the plant, and hence is found in the straw, corn stalks and other materials that (70) PotasH—‘71 ‘usually are kept on the farm, and returned in the manure; and not because it leaches away from the soil less rapidly than phosphoric acid. The great office of potash in the plant seems to be the structure of starch, since it is found that while all the conditions needed for the assimilation of carbon from the air (the process through which starch is formed), may be present, the starch is not formed without the presence of potash in sufficient quantity. Now, as all woody structure is formed from the starch, it is evident that potash is an important matter in the building up of the plant. Plants like potatoes and corn, which make large surplus quantities of starch to store away in tubers and grain, require large percentages of potash in their food. SOILS WHICH NEED POTASH MOST. Light, sandy soils near the coast are more apt to be deficient in potash than the heavy clays, especially the clays that are the result of the decomposi- tion of granitic rocks, which naturally contain a larger percentage of potash. But even in some of these soils the application of potash may be found profit- able, because the potash may be, and commonly is, in the form of an insoluble silicate, and this becomes very slowly available to plants through the action of the carbonic acid in the rain water. Black, peaty soils, resulting from the decomposition of vegetable matter, are very commonly deficient in potash, and it is a common remark on the South Atlantic coast that a certain soil will grow upland rice, but will not make a crop of Indian corn. This is mainly because of the deficiency of mineral matters, chiefly of potash. It is a com- mon and almost universal practice among the manufacturers of fertilizers to make the phosphoric acid much larger in proportion than the potash, and it has been shown by experiment that the average commercial fertilizer has, as a rule, too small a percentage of potash in proportion to the nitrogen and phosphoric acid. The plants, like peas and clover, which give us nitrogen free of cost, are great consumers of phosphates and potash, and they can do far more of their important work if well supplied with the mineral elements of plant food. The average complete fertilizer mixture contains not more than 1 to 2 per cent. of potash, while for tobacco, potatoes, and corn and some other crops the potash on light soils should be as high as 10 per cent. for the best results. Therefore, it is important for the progressive farmer to make his own fertilizing mixtures, so that he can vary the proportions to suit the different crops grown; and if he practices the best rotation, he will find little use for the complete fertilizers, will finally buy nothing but phosphoric acid and potash, and will use these freely for the purpose of getting more of the nitrogen fixed in his soil. ¥2—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING WHAT IS THE BEST FORM OF POTASH ? As we have said, the potash mined in Germany exists in the forms of sulphates, chlorides and carbonates. There is little difference in the rate of availability to the plant of any of these forms, but the effect of the particular form on the different crops is an important matter. It has been found that while the muriate (or chloride) of potash will produce a heavy crop of tobac- co, it seriously impairs the quality of the leaf, and hence in a tobacco fertilizer it is important to use the sulphate, which is free from chlorides. In some sections it has been found that the Irish potato crop is damaged in quality by the use of muriate, while in other sections the muriate is used exclusively on this crop. The nature of the soil seems to have a great deal to-do with the form in which potash is of use to the Irish potato. In the great early-potato growing section of the South Atlantic coast, the muriate has been found to give the finest crop; while in the North and on a heavier soil, the sulphate is of importance in giving quality to the product. On a clay soil and in a Northern climate we should use the sulphate for potatoes. Crops that have sugar as an important constituent are always more favorably affected by the sulphate than the muriate. Sweet potatoes, sugar beets, strawberries, toma- toes and such should always have their potash in the form of a sulphate free from chlorides. Indian corn and grasses, wheat and oats, are indifferent to the form in which the potash is furnished. CRUDE POTASH SALTS. As mined in Germany there are two principal forms of the salts in a crude state. These are kainit and sylvanite. There are other forms, but these are about the only ones exported, and by far the larger part of the crude salts that come to this country are in the form of kainit. While the potash in kainit is in the form of a sulphate, it is mixed with such a large percentage of chloride of sodium (common salt) that its action is the same as the chloride, or muriate. Containing so low a percentage of potash, generally a little over 12 per cent., it is a costly form in which to buy potash at any dis- tance from the port of entry, since the freighting of so large a proportion of useless material rapidly runs up the cost of the potash to the farmer, which is the only thing in it which is of any great importance to him. It is also dangerous to use in large quantities in immediate contact with seed, or young plant roots, because of the salt it contains. Some time ago a farmer in the tobacco section of North Carolina wrote to me that he had bad success with the home mixing of fertilizers from a formula we gave him, and that the PorasH—73 quality of the tobacco was very poor. We asked him to send a copy of the bill of materials he had bought. He purchased them from a large manufac- turer of fertilizers, and it was evident, as soon as we saw the bill, that he had been imposed upon purposely in order to discredit the formula. I prescribed sulphate of potash in the mixture, and he ordered it. On the bill was © charged “sulphate of potash,” and then added, in small letters, “low grade kainit.” The cause of the poor quality of his tobacco was evident and we wrote to him that he had simply been cheated, as he should have had the high grade sulphate free from chlorides, and it was evident that the fertilizer man was after killing his home mixing. MANUFACTURED POTASH SALTS. These are products which have been treated to remove the excess of other constituents and to concentrate the potash. The most common form and the form most generally used in this country is the muriate (or chloride) of pot- ash. It usually contains about 50 per cent. of actual potash. Dealers frequent- ly confuse unlearned buyers by giving on their bags the percentage of muriate instead of the percentage of actual potash. Thus they will say, “muriate of potash, 80 per cent.” and lead the farmer to believe that there is 80 per cent. of potash. If you get an article with such a percentage stated, it simply means that it has that much of the muriate, and you can tell how much potash it has by multiplying the percentage of muriate by the fraction 0.632. Thus a bag marked muriate of potash 80 per cent., would have 50.56 per cent. of potash. In the same way the dealers will mark the sulphate of potash (the high grade) 98 per cent. sulphate of potash, and you can find the actual potash by multiplying this by the fraction 0.54, so that a bag having 98 per cent. of sulphate of potash will contain 52.92 per cent. of actual potash. As we have said, the sulphate is important for some crops for which the muriate is not well adapted, but its cost is greater than that of the muriate, and where the muriate is adapted to the crop it is always the most economical to use. The higher cost of the sulphate leads manufacturers of fertilizers to use the muriate where the sulphate should be used. One of the largest tobacco growers in North Carolina told the writer that he sent a formula to a large manufacturer in which he specified sulphate of potash. They agreed to make it by his formula, and when the goods arrived he sent a sample to the State chemist for analysis, and this showed that the muriate had been used instead of the sulphate. He therefore very properly refused to receive the fertilizer. Tobacco growers who buy ready mixed fertilizers cannot be too careful as to the source of the potash in them. There is another form of manufactured 74—-Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING potash called “ double manure salts,” or the double sulphate of potash and magnesia. This is a lower grade, and contains from 23 to 26 per cent. of potash. From the lower percentage of potash this, like kainit, is more costly _so far as the actual potash is concerned, and it is always more economical, especially where the goods are to be transported far from the port of entry, to buy the most concentrated article and thus avoid the freighting of useless matter. CAPACITY OF THE SOIL FOR ABSORBING POTASH. In some instances, near the coast, it is found that kainit is the cheaper form in which to buy potash. But to get the amount of potash needed by the early potato crop, for instance, would require an application that would be certain to be injurious from the amount of sodium chloride if directly applied to the crop. Fortunately it has been found that while the soil will release the chloride of sodium and allow it to leach away, it will hold on to the potash that was associated with it. Therefore, it has become the practice with a few growers near the coast to apply a heavy dressing of kainit in the fall, to the land they intend planting in potatoes in the spring. The imjurious chloride is leached out of the sandy soil during the winter, while the potash remains. It also seems probable that the chloride in the leaching may render soluble other matters in the soil that may be of use, and thus help the crop. But this very fact may be a disadvantage, since there may be formed soluble chlorides of lime, and the heavy application of kainit may result in the ex- haustion of the lime in the soil. But where this practice is followed, the abundance of marine shells at hand will soon remedy this, if used on the soil after burning. ‘There are few localities, however, where kainit is the cheapest form of potash. The application of potash should in any event, be immedi- ately worked into the soil, so that it may be equally diffused in the soil and not fixed merely at the surface. DANGERS FROM POTASH. The general opinion is that kainit is especially dangerous in contact with seeds or young plant roots, by reason of the large percentage of salt which it contains. This is true, but in our own experiments we have found that the muriate is far more damaging to germination of seeds with which it comes in contact, than kainit is. Carefully conducted experiments have shown that even when covered with an inch of soil, seeds placed above the muriate were seriously damaged. In fact, no fertilizer containing a large percentage of potash should be used in direct contact with the seed; and it is far better that PotTasH—75 both the potash and the phosphates should be applied broadcast, and some time in advance of the planting of the crops, so that they may become fixed and as- similated in the soil an? their caustic effects prevented. Growers of frame lettuce in Eastern North Carolina know that in their sandy soil the crop needs a liberal supply of potash, and they usually give it liberally. A lettuce grower some time since sent me in the early fall some of his plants, which had the edges of the leaves turning red and evidently dying. He wanted to know the reason. Examination showed no insect or fungus attack, but the roots were evidently injured. The plants were set in a frame here and at once grew off and made fine heads. I found that the grower had applied a heavy dress- ing of muriate of potash in the fertilizer used on the frames, and this was doubtless the cause ; for on taking up all the plants and re-setting the frames, after several good rains, he had no further trouble. Wheat growers commonly drill their seed with the fertilizer, and this may do where a very small per- centage of potash is used, and the quantity is far less than that used by the truck growers. POTASH IN WASTE PRODUCTS. Farmers in the tobacco manufacturing sections, and tobacco growers, should understand the value of tobacco waste. The stems from which the tobacco leaves are stripped on the plantations are a valuable source, not only of potash, but of phosphoric acid and nitrogen as well. ‘The stems from the stemming houses are still more valuable, and the dust from the factories where smoking tobacco is made is in a form that is very much more readily taken by plants than the stems. The field stalks of tobacco contain 3.71 per cent. nitrogen, 5.02 per cent. of potash and 0.65 per cent. of phosphoric acid. The stems from the stemmeries contain 2.35 per cent. of nitrogen, 8.20 per cent. of potash and 0.70 per cent. of phosphoric acid. So that with the ex- ception of phosphoric acid they form a complete fertilizer of high grade. But of course they cannot be compared with a soluble fertilizer of similar analysis, since before the nitrogen and other things can become available to plants the material must be completely decayed in the soil. Hence the finely divided dust from the smoking tobacco factories will probably be the more quickly available. Where these materials can be bought cheaply, the farmer may be able to get potash in a cheaper form than any other. We have at hand no analysis of the tobacco dust, and it doubtless varies a great deal owing to the amount of sand and other impurities in it. The percentage of potash may run as high as ten per cent., and the nitrogen as high as in most of the fertilizer mixtures. Part of the nitrogen in tobacco exists as a nitrate and is %6—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING immediately available to plants. The remainder is organic nitrogen, which must go through the process of nitrification in the soil to become available to plants. Where the farmer is so situated as to be able to get these tobacco wastes, he should by all means avail himself of them, since they are rich in plant food and contain no deleterious matters. We have seen tobacco dust spread an inch thick on a lawn with the finest results. A ton of tobacco stems of good quality contains nitrogen equivalent to 500 pounds of nitrate of soda, and potash equal to 200 pounds of high grade sulphate of potash. Since these tobacco wastes can often be bought near the factories for $3 to $5 per ton it is evident that they are a very cheap source of nitrogen and potash. COTTON SEED HULL ASHES. The oil mills engaged in the manufacture of cotton seed oil in the Southern States use the hulls from the seeds largely as a fuel in their fur- naces. The ashes resulting from this burning contain a large percentage of potash, and a fair percentage of phosphoric acid, with very little lime. Ordinary wood ashes contain so large a percentage of lime that they are not available for mixing in fertilizers, since the lime will have a tendency to drive off ammonia and revert the phosphoric acid. While cotton seed hull ashes are rich in potash, they vary greatly in the actual percentage of potash and their value cannot be predicted without an actual analysis of the sample. They contain from 20 to 24 per cent. of potash, nearly 9 per cent. of phos- phoric acid, 9 per cent. of lime and 10 per cent. of magnesia. These ashes are an excellent source of potash and phosphoric acid, and the fact that they are not so rich in lime as ashes from the hard-woods is an advantage, and allows them to be used in compounding a fertilizer mixture where wood ashes would be inadmissable. GREEN SAND MARL. The green sand marls of New Jersey and Southeast Virginia contain a large percentage of potash, as well as a smaller percentage of phosphoric acid. But all these are in a form very slowly available. Their slow availability ren- ders the marl applications lasting in effect, and as the green sand marl can be applied in very large quantities without injurious effects, its value as a me- chanical amendment to the soil is very considerable. Marl has had a great ef- fect on the lands of a section of New Jersey, and also in Southeast Virginia. A farm in Virginia which had an application of 400 bushels per acre 40 years ago was made permanently productive, and since then a further application of marl has not seemed to have any effect. CHAPTER IX. LIME AND LIMING LAND. The substances of which we have been treating in the past three chapters, nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, are direct fertilizers, or plant foods. We come now to the consideration of the forms which are most useful as re- agents, or, as we may say, stimulants to the productive capacity of the soil. While it is true that calcium of which lime is the oxide when freshly made, is one of the elements essential to plant growth, it is usually found in all cultivated soils in almost inexhaustible quantities for all the purposes of direct plant feeding. Yet an application of freshly slaked quick lime (or hydrate of calcium), will often have a marked effect on the productiveness of the soil, through its action in releasing other forms of plant food, particu- larly potash, from the insoluble silicates in which it occurs in the soil. Lime is also important in a soil abounding in organic matter, as it cor- rects the acidity of such soils, and enables the nitrifying microbes to thrive _ and do their work in bringing the nitrogen of the organic matter into the available form of a nitrate. Hence the old proverb that “Lime enriches the father and impoverishes the son,” for it enables us to get at the plant food in the soil, and if used with the notion that it is simply a manure we may soon find that its use has tended to exhaustion. Judiciously used, however, there is nothing that is a greater aid in the development of the farm. Lime also has an important mechanical effect on soils. It renders a heavy clay soil more friable by gathering it into small lumps, or flocculating it, as it is called. On a sandy soil it sinks and forms a compact layer below the plow, and thus renders the soil less leachy. But in many sections where there is a fertile soil well supplied with humus, the application of lime has at first pro- duced such marked results that the farmers have jumped to the conclusion that lime is all they need to keep up the productiveness of their lands. After a while they find that the lime has less and less effect, and they are compelled to resort to commercial fertilizers for the production of crops. We recently (77) "8—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING. had a letter from an old and observant farmer in one of th most prosperous agricultural sections of the State of Maryland, who deplored the fact that his neighbors had used lime to such an extent that their lands were less pro- ductive than formerly. He said that for over thirty years he had used noth- ing on his farm but acid phosphate and clover, with an occasional dressing of a moderate amount of lime to preserve the sweetness of the soil and to enable it to grow large crops of clover. The result was that he made 40 bushels of wheat per acre where his neighbors grew less than formerly. Now, in his application of acid phosphate every third year he applied in it 40 per cent. of the sulphate of lime, and adding a small dressing of freshly slaked lime every sixth year, he kept releasing the potash in his soil, and hence needed only the phosphoric acid in his fertilizer. His red clay soil contains an almost inexhaustible deposit of potash as an insoluble silicate, and the lime gradually gives him the use of some of this. How long he can keep up the productiveness of his land without adding potash will, of course, depend on the amount his soil contains. The wise farmer will, however, watch closely and stand ready to supply the deficiency as it occurs, but will not waste money in the purchase of what he does not at present need. Limestone, from which lime is made, is an impure carbonate of lime, in many instances being mixed with a large percentage of magnesia, making what is called dolomite, or magnesian, limestone. As the magnesia is a use- ful plant food this is not a bad mixture for most soils. Where pure lime is wanted the purer the stone, even till it becomes marble, the better. Oyster shells are used as a source of lime in the coast region, and they are a pure car- bonate of lime, and when free from earthy impurities, make a very pure lime. In some parts of the South lime is burned from the fossil shell rock and contains a small percentage of phosphoric acid. One of the greatest of the values of lime to the farmer is in enabling his soil to grow clover. It is found that the constant growing of clover and the accumulation of organic matter in the soil tends to create an acid condition. Under this condition, the microbes that enable the clover plant to collect nitrogen do not thrive, and the soil microbes that carry on the work of transforming the organic nitrogen into nitrate will not exist. The farmer finds that he can no longer grow clover with any success, for the land is “clover sick.” This is generally the result of an acid condition of the soil. Lime will correct this condition and will usually cause the clover to grow luxuriantly. Most of the legumes are lime-loving plants. The great success of alfalfa in the arid regions of the West is largely due to the fact that the lime has not been washed out of the soil. In the Eastern States no great success with alfalfa has ever been had except from liming it, We visited a year or so ago the grass experiment farm of Peter LIME AND Liming LAND—79 Henderson & Co., at Hackensack, N. J. We were shown there a luxuriant plat of alfalfa, and were told that the year before it had been .very feeble, but in hauling lime to another part of the farm a little shook from the wagon on the corner of the alfalfa patch. At once that part assumed a stronger growth, and noting this, they applied a dressing of lime to the whole plat with the finest results. Shortly after this I visited the farm of a wealthy gentleman in North Carolina, who is interested in the dairy, and was trying to grow alfalfa. We advised him to give it a coat of lime, which was done. We passed the field but a few days ago and noted from the train that it was the most luxuriant growth of alfalfa we have ever seen in the East. The lime is not only to some extent direct food for the alfalfa, but it brings about changes in other matters that favor its growth. One of these changes is one of the most recent discoveries in science. We have seen that all green plants get their carbon from the air through the assimilative action of their green matter. Fungus plants have no green matter and hence, as a rule, are de- pendent on what green leaved plants have assimilated. But these microscopic plants in the soil, which carry on the work of changing the organic nitrogen into nitrates, though they are members of the great fungus class, have a power that no green plant is known to possess. They can get the carbon for their growth from mineral combinations like the carbonate of lime. Here, then, is another reason why the application of lime to a soil abounding in organic matter favors the nitrification, or formation of nitrates, for the use of green plants which must get their nitrogen from the soil. Lime, to have its best effect, should be well burned, and slaked with water to a powder before applying it to the soil. If allowed to he and get air slaked it is far less effective, since it gets, through the action of the car- bonic acid in the air, into an insoluble carbonate, or returns almost to the con- dition in which pulverized limestone would have been. Stone lime slaked with water till it falls, should make three bushels of slaked lime for every bushel of fresh lumps. Oyster shell lime will slake two bushels for one. There has of late been quite a change in the ideas of thinkers in regard to the quantity of lime that should be used. Formerly it was the practice to apply lime in large quantities and at long intervals. In recent years it has been shown experimentally that a small application, frequently repeated, is far better than the heavy application, so that now it is seldom that more than 20 bushels per acre are used by the best farmers, and some even contend for a smaller application than this. With a short rotation of three or four years, in which there are frequent crops of legumes grown, the repeated application of small doses of lime every four or five years has been found to produce bet- ter results than twice the amount at a longer interval. 80—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING Experiments that have been long and carefully conducted by the Rhode Island Agricultural Experiment Station, have shown that the sweetening of an acid soil by the application of lime is not always an advantage, since there are some plants that seem to prefer the acid soil, or rather some that are more exempt from disease in such a soil. On the Irish potato crop, for instance, it was found that liming brought about conditions that were favorable to the fungus that causes scab in the potato, and while the resulting crop may be larger the market value was reduced by reason of the scab. Acidity in the soil is detrimental, it appears, to the lower forms of plant life rather than to green plants. Many people have jumped to the conclusion that their land has become infested with sheep sorrel because of its acidity. The fact is that while this is usually the case it by no means follows that the sheep sorrel gets its acid from the soil. The sheep sorrel is one of the plants that can abide the presence of free oxalic acid, while this acid is formed in other plants, the plant at once makes a combination of it with lime or potash and locates it in crystals insoluble in the sap at ordinary temperatures, and thus renders it harmless. The oxalic acid in the sheep sorrel, like other vegetable acids, is the result of the assimilation of carbon from the air, and it does not come from the soil. But sheep sorrel will grow in a soil too acid to allow the suc- cess of clover, and hence it is the common complaint that we cannot get clover on account of the sheep sorrel. An application of lime will bring about con- ditions favorable to the clover and enable it to smother out the sheep sorrel. Not that the liming kills the sheep sorrel, but that it enables the clover to grow and overcome it. Anyone can readily test the condition of his soil by getting a piece of blue litmus paper from a drug store, and burying it over night in the damp soil. If, on taking it up, it is found to have turned to a pink color it is evidence that the soil is in an acid condition, and as our most valuable crops thrive best in a soil of a feebly alkaline nature, an application of lime to such soils will usually be beneficial. While most legumes, and especially red clover, are greatly benefited by an application of freshly water slaked lime, there is one important legume which is not thus helped. The cow pea, the greatest legume for the Southern farmer, is positively damaged by a dressing of lime. Hence one reason why the cow pea will thrive on a soil too acid to permit the growth of clover. It seems probable, too, that the microbes that exist on the roots of the pea, and enable it to get the free nitro- gen from the air, are better able to exist in an acid soil than those of the clo- ver ; for it is well known now that each legume has its own particular microbe, and that some of them may be inimical to those of other legumes, and it is rare to find one species of legume doing its best immediately after the removal of another of the same order from the land. This is only another reason for LIME AND Liming LAnpD—81 a still further development of rotations of crops. Lime will never make poor land rich if regarded simply as a manure, but, used aright, there is no means - available to the farmer that will more efficiently aid in the building up of the productivity of his land. SULPHATE OF LIME, OR PLASTER. The sulphate of lime is a natural deposit found in certain sections, and mined under the name of gypsum or plaster. Pure gypsum contains 32.4 per cent. of lime, 46.5 per cent. of sulphuric acid, and 21 per cent. of water. It is frequently burned to form what is called plaster of Paris, which, when mixed in water, rapidly hardens and is used for various purposes in the arts. The pulverized rock, known as plaster, has been largely used as a soil applica- tion. Like lime, the plaster has the power to release insoluble potash in the soil, and it sometimes has a marked effect on soils containing a large percent- age of potash. As in the case of lime, farmers seeing the effect that an appli- eation of plaster has on their soil, have at times jumped to the conclusion that plaster was all they needed to make their soil rich. But, as in the case of lime, they have soon found that the continued application soon fails to produce the effect that it once did, and that its continued use has so impover- ished their soil that they have been compelled to resort to the commercial fertilizers to restore the mineral constituents they have removed by their short-sighted policy. While on some soils plaster has had this marked effect, there are other soils on which the application of plaster has never had any marked effect. Sandy soils near the coast, which are deficient in potash, seldom respond favorably to the application of plaster. In an experiment made by the writer a number of years ago, two fields adjoining in clover of the second spring from sowing, were dressed with lime and plaster of the same money value. Both made a handsome growth, but the effect of the freshly slaked lime was decidedly more marked than that of the plaster, and the subsequent cropping of the land showed that the limed field had collected far more nitrogen than the one treated with plaster. A great deal has been said and written in regard to the use of plaster in arresting the escape of ammonia from manure, and some seem to suppose that dry plaster scattered about a stable will absorb ammonia and prevent its loss. The fact is that plaster has little or no effect in preventing loss of am- monia unless it is thoroughly mixed in the manure and moistened, for no chemical recombination can take place in the absence of moisture. Plaster, being the sulphate of lime, may, when well mixed with manure and moist- 82—Crop Growina AND Crop FEEDING ened, change the volatile carbonate of ammonia to the less volatile sulphate and thus retain it in the manure. A more efficient agent for this purpose, that can be mixed with the manure, but should not be used under the animals, is kainit, or the low grade crude sulphate of potash. The large amount of salt it contains helps to keep the manure moist, and it has the same effect of replacing the carbonate of ammonia with the sulphate and at the same time adding potash, which is usually deficient in the manure in proportion to its ni- trogenous content. Years ago in the southeastern part of Virginia, where there are extensive deposits of plaster rock and also extensive salt deposits, the salt manufacturers got up what was known as the Holston mixture, made of plaster, ashes and salt, and this mixture for a long time had a great reputa- tion in Virginia. Its beneficial effects on crops were largely due to the ashes, and, on some soils, to the plaster, while the salt, though not a fertilizer at all, may have had some effect in the solution of matters of value in the soil. Asa rule, where a farm is cultivated in a good rotation and lime is used in connec- tion with the growing of clover there will be little or no use for the plaster, unless it may be in a section where plaster is a remarkably cheap article, and even then it could hardly take the place of lime. GAS HOUSE LIME. Near the city gas houses this lime is commonly offered so cheaply that farmers are tempted to use it on their land. We have seen some disastrous results from the use of this lime as it is freshly brought from the gas works. It contains, while fresh, sulphides that are positively poisonous to plant life, and while it may be used with some good effect after a long exposure to the air, even the small percentage of nitrogen it contains in the form of sulphate of ammonia may be positively harmful, so that while it contains a good per- centage of lime, we cannot advise its use. Far better pay a reasonable price for fresh quick lime than have the gas house lime for the hauling. SULPHATE OF LIME AS A WASTE PRODUCT. Sometimes the manufacturers of fertilizers, in order to make a more con- centrated article of superphosphate, remove a portion of the sulphate of lime, which contains a small percentage of phosphoric acid. This has been sold at about the price of common plaster, and when in a good mechanical condi- tion it is a good substitute for plaster. One manufacturer offers this under the name of “stable dust,” and recommends it for sprinkling manure to pre- vent the formation of the volatile carbonate of ammonia and a consequent loss of nitrogen. Of its proper use in this we have already written. LIME AND Limine LAnND—83 AGRICULTURAL SALT The packing houses have large quantities of refuse salt which they are glad to get rid of at a low price, and there is a persistent effort to persuade the farmers that it is valuable as a manure. The editors of agricultural papers are continually applied to by their readers for information in regard to the value of salt as a manure, and there are some writers who are continu- ally claiming that soda, of which salt is largely composed, can be profitably used as a substitute for potash. Though experiments have continually shown that this is not the case, and that soda cannot take the place of potash, the subject seems to be a perennial one for some. Salt, or chloride of sodium, furnishes in itself no element of plant food essential to vegetation, and what- ever good effect may result from its use is due to its action in aiding the de- composition of organic matter in the soil, “increasing the absorbing power of soils, and, by its reaction with lime, acting as a solvent for phosphate.” Prof. Voorhees, in his work on fertilizers, well says, “There would seem to be no good reason for paying from $4 to $6 per ton for this substance, when practi- -cally the same effect can be obtained from the salt contained in the crude potash salt, kainit, one-third of the weight of which is common salt. This, too, may be had free of charge, or for the handling, as the market price of the kainit is based upon its content of potash.” SHELL MARLS. The shell marls of the Atlantic coast are almost entirely carbonate of lime, and can be used for about the same purpose as the air slaked lime. Properly used in connection with the culture of legumes, these marls have a value, but it must not be assumed that, like the green sand marl, they will furnish other forms of plant food, and, when applied heavily to soils deficient in humus, their effect may be disastrous to the fertility of the land — a long time. TAN BARK ASHES. These are another waste product about which inquiries are continually being made. Farmers, knowing the value of hard-wood ashes, are apt to con- clude that the ashes from the spent oak bark will have considerable value. While good hard-wood ashes may contain from 5 to 7 per cent. of potash, the tan bark ashes seldom have over 2 per cent. of potash, associated with a small percentage of phosphoric acid and about 30 per cent. of lime. They are not 84—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING valuable enough to pay for hauling any great distance if they have to be paid for. Where they can be had for the hauling a short distance it may pay the local farmers to use them. SWAMP MUCK, OR PEAT. Many years ago an enthusiastic chemist wrote a book entitled the “Muck Manual,” and talked learnedly about gein and other things, and showed that muck mixed with spent ashes was identical in composition with cow dung. But the muck swamps of the country have not yet been transformed into cow dung, and there is far less talk about the virtures of muck than there was in the writer’s boyhood. The introduction of commercial fertilizers has so re- duced the labor of furnishing plant food to the soil that few are willing now to undertake the great labor of digging and handling peat. There is no doubt that a good quality of swamp muck, when well dried, is a good ab- sorbent of liquids in stables and barnyards, and that it will put a good deal of humus in the soil; and that finally there may be some release of nitrogen from its organic matter. But raw muck spread on the land can have very ° little effect in increasing its productiveness, and may do positive harm. If the muck is to be applied directly to the land the best way would probably be to pile it in the fall in flat heaps, and cover every six-inch layer with freshly slaked lime. After lying in this way during the Winter, it will make a much better application for the soil. But, as Prof. Voorhees well says, if the swamp can be drained, it is far better to leave the muck there and drain the land for cultivation. CHAPTER X. MIXING FERTILIZERS ON THE FARM. A great deal has been said and written of late years in regard to the mixing of fertilizers on the farm. The manurial requirements of the dif- ferent crops vary to such an extent that the same fertilizer is not always best for all, and it is of great advantage to vary the proportions of the various constituents to suit the crop grown. It is difficult and expensive to do this by buying the ready mixed articles. Then, too, it has been shown that for the soil of many sections of the country, particularly in New England, the ready made fertilizers all have too large a proportion of phosphates to the potash and nitrogen used. In the reports of analyses of commercial fertilizers by the Agricultural Experiment Stations it is a common practice to give the commercial value of each. This value means that the plant-food in the mixture can be bought at retail on the market for the price named. But the commercial value of a fertilizer and its agricultural value are two entirely different things. It must not be assumed that because a fertilizer is rated high in commercial value it is also the best for all soils and crops. The agricultural value depends on the needs of the land on which it is to be used, and in buying by the commercial valuation the farmer may be buying matter which his soil does not need, and hence will be wasting money in the purchase. If there is no need for the purchase of nitrogen, for instance, the farmer can save at least half the cost of the fertilizer by buying an incomplete fer- tilizer, containing potash and phosphoric acid only. The various Experiment Stations have given a great deal of attention to the investigation of fertilizers, and their unanimous conclusion is that the farmers can buy the materials and mix their own fertilizers more cheaply than they can buy the factory mixed, and at the same time get just as good results from their use on crops. In regard to the valuation and selling price of commercial fertilizers, the Vermont Station (Bulletin No. 71) says, from an analysis of 137 brands made by eighteen different companies, “two-fifths of the brands carried no (85) 86—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING water-soluble nitrogen. Laboratory methods seem to indicate that somewhat inferior forms of nitrogen were used in certain cases, notably in some low grade goods, and by some companies. The phosphoric acid was, in some cases, quite largely in the insoluble or reverted forms, indicating apparently either imperfect manufacture, old goods, or more.or less use of (agricultur- ally) inferior forms of this article. Sulphate of potash is claimed to be present in nine-tenths of the brands, but was actually found in less than’ one-eighth of the entire number. The average selling price approximated $28.75, and the average valua- tion $17.39. Two dollars in every five paid for fertilizers met costs of man- ufacture and sale. The same amount of plant-food which cost a dollar might have been bought at retail for cash at the seaboard for 56 cents in average low priced goods, for 61 cts. in average medium grade brands, and for 66 cts. in average high priced goods. In one-third of the entire number of brands a dollar was charged for amounts of plant-food which might have been bought, in the manner above stated, for 55 cents or less. Cheap fertilizers are usually the most expensive to buy. Buying mixed goods on time is a far more costly method of getting plant-food than is home mixing or buying on special order.” Low grade fertilizers, or complete fertilizers sold at low price, are always the most costly to the farmer. Several years ago a dealer in one of our cities, who was having fertilizers made for his trade by a chemical firm, sent me a package of the burnt sand and iron oxide left in the manufacture of sulphuric acid from iron pyrites, and wished to know if it had any fertilizing value, as he found that the manufacturer was using 500 pounds of it in a ton of low grade goods made for his sales. 1, of course, told him that it was perfectly valueless. The farmer who bought these goods was attracted by their appar- ent low price, when, in fact, he was paying a high price for all the article contained of value, and was then paying freight on one-fourth of the bulk in an article that was of no use to him whatever. In some States, notably in North Carolina, the law in regard to fer- tilizers is so rigid and so strictly enforced, that manufacturers are compelled to fully come up to the guarantee printed on their bags, and in these States the farmer is pretty sure to get what he buys, and the only objection is that the prices charged are entirely too high. The great argument which the manufacturers of fertilizers have used against home mixing has been that the farmer cannot mix the goods as well as they can with their machinery, and that if he could do so, they could with their machinery mix them more cheaply. The fact is that with the materials at hand, the farmer can mix in any proportion fully as well as the factories MixiING FERTILIZERS ON THE FARM—87 mix the goods, and at a cost that will not be felt at all. According to the organ of the fertilizer makers the cost of mixing and putting their goods on the market is about $6 per ton, and the same paper figures up this cost by adding up drummers’ salaries, postage, telegrams, travelling expenses and a lot of other items, none of which the farmer mixing his own goods would have to pay, but which are really paid by the manufacturers and those who buy from them ready mixed goods. So the fact is that the farmer can not only get the materials at retail for less than they are charged for them in the ready mixed articles, but he can also mix them far cheaper than the factories can. The same bulletin to which we have referred above, says in regard to the guarantees and claims of the fertilizer makers: “Guarantees are often designedly confusing and convey wrong impressions. Nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash are what make fertilizers agriculturally and commercially valuable. They are often expressed, however, in guarantees as ammonia, bone-phosphate of lime and sulphate of potash. This is done to make a semblance of giving large percentages of plant-food. Thus ni- trogen equivalent to ammonia 2.50 per cent. promises really only 2.06 per cent. of nitrogen; available phosphoric acid equivalent to bone-phosphate of lime 21.80 per cent. promises but 10 per cent. available; and potash (sul- phate) 3.70 per cent. but 2 per cent. of potash.” Buyers should remember these facts, and ignore in the guarantee everything except the lower figures for nitrogen, (not ammonia or nitrogen equivalent to ammonia), available phosphoric acid and potash (not sulphate of potash, or potash sulphate, or potash equivalent to or equal to sulphate). The law in the State of North Carolina, which in most respects is the best in the country and the most rigidly enforced, allows no sliding scale of percentages on the bags, but re- quires that the sack shall have printed on it the actual percentage of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash. Only this and nothing more. If all the States would pass a similar law there would soon be an end to the long so- called analyses printed on the bags, simply for the purpose of befogging the farmer into the belief that the sack contains a great deal more than it does. We have at hand from a correspondent a sample of a commercial fer- tilizer, on which is printed the following: GUARANTEED ANALYSIS. Por rio). ae oe ae a 2 a 2.10 to 2.50 per cent. Total phosphoric Acid 313.0 oo Seg see 8.50 to 9.50 per cent. Available phosphoric acid ..... ........ 7.40 to 8.40 per cent. PEERY (ROU 0.5 cS a5 cx clan aes vies. o's 2.15 to 2.65 per cent. Equivalent to potash sulphate.......... 4.10 to 5.25 per cent. Magnesia, organic matter, etc........... 60 to 70 per cent. 88—CropP GROWING AND Crop FEEDING Now all this means that the article has in it, if the analysis is correct, nitrogen 1.73 per cent., available phosphoric acid 7.40 per cent. and potash 2.15 per cent. All the rest is put there to make the farmer think there is a great deal in it, while it is, in fact, a very low grade fertilizer. The “organic matter, ete.,” is probably “filler” put in to make bulk. This is but a single sample of thousands of similar “analyses” on fertilizer sacks all over this country. The manufacturer who cannot state just what his article contains must be a poor manufacturer, or puts the sliding scale there to crawl out on. If you see a sliding scale of percentage you may be sure that the lowest figure comes nearest to what is the actual per cent. But there is a great deal less of actual swindling in fertilizers since the laws for the inspection have been adopted in nearly all the States, and the farmer dealing with firms of reputation can usually depend on getting what he orders. The great objection to the ready mixed goods is not their quality, but the fact that they are sold at too high a price, as is evident from the fact that buyers at retail can get the same plant-foods for less money. Bulletin No. 139 of the New Jersey Station, says in regard to home mixing of fertilizers: “Home mixing has been carried on with entire satisfaction by a number of farmers for several years. ‘The Station has encouraged these efforts as of value to the individuals themselves and an object lesson to their neighbors, since it renders them familiar with the kinds and forms of plant-food, teaches them to think of pounds of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, rather than tons . of a particular phosphate, and in general unfolds the mystery which envel- opes the make-up of fertilizers in the minds of many.” Bulletin No. 53 of the Maine Station well says: “That which transcends everything else in the purchase of fertilizers is to know what you want and then get it—get it as cheap as you can and still get the plant food needed. No one would think of buying salt for sugar because it can be obtained at a lower price, but the writer has knowledge of the purchase of nitrogen when potash was needed, simply because the trade value of a nitrogenous fertilizer as printed exceeded its selling price.” In Bulletin No. 132 of the New Jersey Station, a number of analyses are given of fertilizers mixed by farmers for their own use, and the results show that the proportions of the different constituents was as well main- tainded as in the manufactured goods. “As a method of economical pur- chase of fertilizers, either mixing them at home, or having them especially compounded at the factory, seems to be equally recommended by the experi- ence here reported. This opportunity of saving in the purchase of fertilizers is open to all who will study their crops and soils, learn what they need, and secure it by the more business-like method. It is a combination of com- MIXING FERTILIZERS ON THE FaRM—89 prehension, co-operation and cash that effects these reductions in the cost of fertilizer supplies.” This is the secret of the whole matter. The prices of ready mixed fertilizers have to be kept high because of the long credits and bad debts, and the men who buy them have to pay these bad debts of others in advanced prices. Buying the materials for cash in wholesaledlots through a combination of neighbors will always result in a great saving. It is far better to borrow the money to pay cash for fertilizers than to pay the credit price. Bulletin No. 65 of the Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station, says: “Home mixtures made in this State furnished from 30 to 50 per cent. more plant-food at the same cost than did average manufacturers’ mixtures.” Dr. C. W. Dabney,: Director of the Tennessee Experiment Station, writes: “Farmers who take their life work seriously and study earnestly the experimental work of the State Stations, for the purpose of informing them- selves with regard to the useful ingredients of fertilizers, the proper mode of applying them and such matters, are getting more and more into the habit of buying the raw materials for fertilizers and mixing them themselves, or else they have a compound mixed at a factory according to their own formula and from materials of their own selection.” Farmers’ Bulletin No. 84, U. 8. Department of Agriculture, treats of the various objections raised to the practice of home mixing. “Farmers are persuaded that the compounding of fertilizers is an intricate and difficult matter, requiring extensive acquaintance with chemistry, costly machinery and great technical skill. The case well illustrates the old adage, that a half truth is a whole falsehood. The production and manufacture of fer- tilizing materials—that is, the selection, quarrying, grinding and acidulation of phosphatic rock; the drying and grinding of slaughter house refuse, the production and refining of such materials as nitrate of soda, sulphate of ammonia and muriate of potash—all these are distinctly manufacturing processes, which require chemical or technical knowledge, skill in manipula- tion, and expensive machinery. But these operations are entirely separate and distinct from the compounding of mixed fertilizers. Each of the materials named comes from the manufacturer in condition to be used by itself as a fertilizer, and each one is so used for special purposes. The com- pounding of these materials under a proprietary brand into a mixed fertilizer, is no more a manufacture than is the mixing of a ration of corn meal and bran to be fed to a cow. The only difference is that the ration which is designed to be distributed uniformly to thousands or millions of plants requires to be more carefully mixed than that fed to a single cow. If we were feeding each plant by itself no mixing would be necessary, or if we 90—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING were giving the different elements of a ration at different times; as for instance, when we apply superphosphate and muriate of potash to wheat in the fall and follow with nitrate of soda in the spring. This point, of the essential. difference between those operations which are legitimately called manufacturing and those which are simply mixing, should be clearly under- stood. When the farmer learns that he can mix his own fertilizers and thereby materially reduce their cost, the use of fertilizing materials will be largely increased, and the final outcome will be a benefit and not an injury to the legitimate: trade in fertilizers.” This is just what the writer has been insisting upon through the agri- cultural press for years, but such is the short sighted policy of the manu- facturers of fertilizing materials, who are generally at the same time mixers of the materials in any number of fancy brands, many of them identical except in name, that they put all sorts of obstacles in the way of the farmer’s getting the raw materials for mixing his fertilizers at home, and constantly endeavor to make the farmer think that their process of putting these ma- terials together is a matter of great skill and experience, and cannot be done without the use of expensive machinery. Machinery is used, of course, in the mixing on a large scale, as a matter of economy, and to increase the profit to the mixer. Bulletin No. 173 of the New York (Geneva) Station showed that the average selling price of mixed fertilizers in that State per ton averaged $6.25 more than the separate ingredients could be bought for at retail. Inas- much as this was far higher than the actual cost to the large mixer, it can easily be seen that the profits of mixing on a large scale must be large, and that the wise farmer can easily save, even in buying in retail quantities, a considerable sum. Bulletin No. 45 of the Maine Station says; “One of the claims which fertilizer manufacturers are making for the superiority of their goods over home mixed fertilizers is that the former are manufactured. This should mean, if it means anything, that the goods are more evenly mixed, and therefore, more uniform. In the tables given on the previous pages it will be found that in some instances in which two samples of the same brand have been taken and analyzed, that they differ from each other quite materially. The samples were taken with a great deal of care by experienced men from a large number of packages. It would not seem difficult to make home mixed fertilizers which should run as uniformly as some of the brands here re- ported upon. Bulletin No. 79 of the Kentucky Station says in regard to the selection of the proper fertilizers, “Their profitable use will depend upon a knowledge MIXING FERTILIZERS ON THE FaRM—91 of the needs of the particular soil to which they are to be applied, and the requirements of the crop to be grown. The latter knowledge has been gained once for all for most farm crops by a scientific study of these crops, but the needs of the soil must in most cases be learned by the farmer himself, either from systematic field experiments, or by observation and experience. If it is necessary for a farmer to use commercial fertilizers, and he is working upon a kind of soil that has not already been tested, we believe it will pay him to learn its needs by carrying out systematic experiments with fertilizers. The experiments made at this Station amply illustrate this. It would be very unprofitable to buy phosphates for use on soil like that of the Station farm, but potash salts could be profitably used there on most crops. This is because the soil is already rich in phosphates. But if it were deficient in phosphates, as is the case with many soils in this State, it would be unprofitable to use potash salts alone, and one would have to supply phosphates. It is, therefore, necessary in purchasing a commercial fertilizer to consider, first, what our soil needs for the crop to be raised, and then to look for the fertilizer contain- ing most of these substances, in an available form, as shown by its chemical analysis and guaranteed by the manufacturer, at the least cost. It is well to bear in mind, also, that nitrogen compounds are the most expensive con- stituents of commercial fertilizers, and if we can keep up our nitrogen supply by means of clover, cow peas, or other leguminous plants, or by barnyard manure, and purchase only such phosphates and potash as may be needed, we will have accomplished a great saving.” Here, too, is a strong argument for home mixing, since it will rarely happen that we can get a ready mixed fer- tilizer exactly suited to our soil and crops without buying at the same time something we do not need. Bulletin No. 80 of the Vermont Station shows that in the past spring (1900) the average price of mixed fertilizers was $28.73, and the average value, based on the retail price of the ingredients, was $18.08, another evidence of the saving to be made in home mixing. But the most complete investigation of the value of home mixing of fer- tilizers has been made at the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station. It is claimed by the factory mixers of fertilizers that in using tankage as a source of nitrogen they have a great advantage in the fact that they treat their tankage with sulphuric acid to render it more soluble, and hence far better than the untreated tankage used in the simple mixtures. It was shown by the experiment at the Ohio Station that this causes great loss of nitrogen from fall application to the wheat crop and “it follows, therefore, that if the treatment of tankage with sulphuric acid serves to make its nitrogen as solu- ble as that in sulphate of ammonia—and this is precisely what is claimed for it—then such treatment is injurious and not beneficial to him who would 92—CroPp GROWING AND Crop FEEDING use tankage in the fall as a carrier of nitrogen‘to wheat.* * * * Our experi- ments do not support the claim that the acidulation of tankage is necessary, unless the tankage has been adulterated with leather scraps or similar material; they rather show that it is a disadvantage. * * * The sulphuric acid used in acidulation costs only about one-third as much per pound as the fertilizer is sold for. In point of fact, the manufacturer can very well afford to pay $6 to $8 per ton for sulphuric acid to be sold again at $20 to $30. * * In the field experiments of this Station factory mixed fertilizers, made by firms of high standing, produce no greater crops than home mixed fertilizers of equivalent composition. The cost of the factory mixed fertilizers was greater by 50 to 90 per cent. than that of the equivalent home mixtures. Physical and chemical examination of the two forms of mixtures show that the factory mixed fertilizer is not more homogenous in its character than that mixed by the farmer. Fertilizer materials may be as perfectly mixed with a shovel on a barn floor or in a large box as by the most elaborate mixing machinery.” HOW TO MIX FERTILIZER. There is a widely prevalent idea that the chemical constituents of a fer- tilizer must have a “filler” mixed with them to make bulk. This notion has arisen from the fact that fertilizer mixers commonly use worthless materials for fillers in low grade goods, so as to be able to sell them at an apparently low price, while still getting full prices for all that is of value in them. The various fertilizing constituents are already combined in such a way that no further filler is needed, and they only need to be mixed in the desired propor- tions. This mixing we have shown can be as well done on a barn floor as by the most elaborate machinery. Having determined from a formula the proportions in which the articles are to be mixed, is is a simple matter to spread them out in layers on the barn floor, and then having set up an ordinary sand screen to shovel the mass through the screen repeatedly, beating up all the lumps, till a perfect mixture is made. After the mass has been shovelled through the screen two or three times it will be sufficiently mixed for all practical purposes. In fact, if we could distribute the materials over the land in the exact proportions needed, there would be no necessity for mixing them at all, but this would take a great deal more labor than mixing and spreading at one going over the ground. We give elsewhere a series of formulas adapted to various crops on dif- erent soils. These are largely for complete fertilizer mixtures containing due MIxING FERTILIZERS ON THE FARM—93 proportions of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash. But it must not be supposed that these are in every case necessary or profitable. They have been devised from the study of the manurial requirements of the various crops, as- suming that the soil needs them all. But we will try to show how, by good farming and a proper rotation of crops, we can avoid the constant application of commercial fertilizers to every crop grown. The Experiment Stations have devoted so much time and labor to the study of the manurial require- ments of crops that farmers are apt to imagine that all they have to do is to suit a fertilizer to the crop in order to make it. CHAPTER XI. THE MAINTENANCE OF FERTILITY. The maintaining and increasing of the productive capacity of the soil in a profitable manner should be the ultimate aim in the use of manures and fertilizers of any kind, and not the mere speculating on how much sale crop we can get through the use of a certain fertilizer mixture. This has been the course over large sections of the country, especially among the cotton farmers of the South, until with the majority of the farmers the first question asked is, “How much and what kind of fertilizer shall I use to get a certain crop?” Men frequently write to me that they have a certain field which last year made, say, ten bushels of corn per acre, and they want to know what and how much fertilizer they shall apply to that same field to make it produce 50 bushels of corn per acre. We have to reply, of course, that it cannot be done in that way. The physical and mechanical condition of the soil has as much to do with its productivity as the amount of plant-food it may contain. When a field, through a long course of bad treatment, has been deprived of its humus, and has gotten into a bad mechanical condition, no amount of fertil- izer will at once restore it to its normal state of productiveness. It took years to complete the robbery of the soil and years of proper farming will be required to restore it. USING FERTILIZERS IN CONTINUOUS CROPPING. There are many men in the South who imagine that they are farming profitably by growing cotton year after year on the same ground with an an- nual application of fertilizers, simply because they show some profit over the cost, and not reflecting that they could secure greater profits by proper rota- tion and a smaller expenditure of fertilizers. As compared with real farm- ing, their cultivation can easily be shown to be unprofitable. Especially is this true when the crops are the cereal grains. At the Ohio Station a long (94) THE MAINTENANCE OF FERTILITY—95 series of experiments have been made with various rotations and also with cereal crops grown on the same soil year after year with the use of commer- cial fertilizers. They thus summarize the results of the continuous crop- ping. “At the prices at which mixed fertilizers are sold in Ohio the attempt to furnish all the nitrogen, as well as all the phosphoric acid and potash, re- quired to produce increase in cereal crops grown in continuous culture, has invariably resulted in pecuniary loss, although very large increase of crop has been thus produced.” ‘The rotation of cereals with nitrogen gathering crops, therefore, has been shown to be absolutely essential to the profitable use of commercial fertilizers in any form.” This confirms all that we have found through a long experience in the cultivation of the soil. The constant use of complete fertilizer mixtures for the production of sale crops only, has brought poverty to the soil over large sections of the country, and of course poverty to the cultivator. It is for the purpose of aiding in the bringing about of a change in this respect, and of showing how fertilizers may be used profitably for the improvement of the condition of the farm and the farmer alike, that we have undertaken the work of writing this book. The writer is a Southern man, born and raised in the South, and it has been his life’s work to do all that he can to aid the farmers of the South especially, to the adoption of better methods, for he is convinced that the wasteful use of fertilizers and the continuous cropping of the land in sale crops is responsible for the sad condition of farms and farmers in the South. And it is not only in the South, but in, other parts of the country, where the farmers are just beginning to realize that their soil is becoming run down, and needs help, that there is danger that they, too, will imagine that in the bag of fertilizer they can find all that they need, and they are beginning to start in the same road towards “old fields” that the - South has travelled. The old, down hill road has been an easy one to follow, and required little thought; the new one calls for careful study and experi- mentation on the part of the farmer. He can no longer succeed by the old, happy-go-lucky methods, but must become a student and a book farmer to a great extent. By maintaining the fertility of his land he can alone hope to succeed. This cannot be done by an annual gambling in fertilizers and the growing of a single crop year after year on the same land. No matter what the crops are, whether wheat on the plains of the Northwest, corn on the prairies of the Middle West, tobacco in Virginia or Ohio, or cotton in the South, single cropping everywhere tends to soil exhaustion and the depleticn of the farmer’s resources. One characteristic of the Northern farmers in contrast to their brothers in the South, is the readiness with which they see errors in their work and 96—CRoP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING make a change for the better, while the innate conservatism of the Southern farmer holds him longer in the old ruts than his Northern competitor. The great decrease in the wheat crop on the plains of Dakota showed plainly that the wheat growers there were, as we have said, straight on the road to “old fields” as those of the South have long been. But of late, the farmers of Dakota are realizing their error, and are going into cattle. They can do this all the more profitably now that the sheep have driven the cattle from the great ranges of Colorado, Utah and other sections where cattle formerly were raised in immense numbers. These great ranges of public land no longer carry their herds of cattle, for sheep have gotten possession ; the cattle of the future will not be raised on the free ranges, but on the lands belonging to the farmer, and the cattle feeding of the Eastern States will once more become profitable. The Dakota wheat growers are wise enough to see the error of their one-cropping, and to take advantage of the changed conditions in the cattle industry. Having taken this step before the “old fields” were present in all their hideous barrenness, the Dakota farmer will have the great advantage of his Southern brother in the unexhausted condition of his soil and its capacity for the production of grass. But if the farmers in a section where cattle must be housed and fed for nine months and where great storage _ must be made of winter feed, can produce beef cattle at a profit, what should the farmers of sections which can produce the finest of forage plants in the greatest abundance and where the cattle can roam in the fields nearly every day in the year, do? We cannot too often insist that there can be no real prosperity on the farm, no real home making and nowhere near the profit in farming, with one crop, and selling that in the raw state. The growing of forage crops and the keeping of live stock lies at the very foundation of all rational methods of soil improvement and the maintenance of the fertility of our acres. The farmer who transforms some of his raw products into a more finished product always realizes a larger price for his product than the man who constantly sells only the raw product. Some years ago the writer made a visit to Nebraska for the purpose of studying the growth and manu- facture of beet sugar as practiced there. We were struck with the beauty of the wide spread of corn fields, and took occasion to talk with the farmers not only about their beet growing, but in regard to other crops. Asking one Ger- man farmer what corn was worth per bushel, he replied that he believed it was about 20 to 25 cents, but that he did not sell corn as some of his neighbors did. His corn went into hogs and they carried themselves to the depot, and he got 50 cents a bushel for his corn and had the manure left, though he seemed to care little for that, for like most farmers on the new prairies, he thought the soil inexhaustible, like those further east who are now buying THE MAINTENANCE OF FERTILITY—97 fertilizers. I said to this man that his course was wise, but that he might go still further, for I had noticed that in the thriving young city near him ihe grocery stores sold only the packed hams and bacon from Chicago, and that his pigs had paid the freight both ways and a profit to the packer, and that he could do some home packing and sell the bacon as well as they and probably get a better price than the packer’s meat brought. The German seemed to catch the idea and remarked that he believed he would get 75 cents for his corn. As I write, the hams of the packing houses can be bought at retail here for 10 to 15 cents per pound, while at the same stores the famous hams of the Southeast Virginia farmers are selling for 22 cents per pound. By the production of a superior quality of cured product, the farmer can realize large prices for his grain and not have to take what the market offers for the raw product. Lay it down as a law that no country or community ever became permanently rich by the sale of its raw products only. To some extent the South is beginning to learn this, and all over the country cotton mills are being built and run at a profit and the labor drawn to them from the farms has to be fed by the farms, and a new inducement is offered to the Southern farmer to produce food crops, as his market is growing more rapidly than its supply. WHY A SHORT ROTATION IS BEST. The Ohio Station, in the series of experiments undertaken for the pur- pose of demonstrating the best method for maintaining the fertility of the soil, arrived at the following conclusion: “Thus far in these experiments, the surplus nitrogen accumulated by a crop of clover, the roots only being left in the ground, has not been more than sufficient to satisfy the demands of the one crop immediately following the clover.* * * * It appears to be clear, therefore, that under the conditions of this experiment, which is made on soils of reduced fertility, and on which there has been no systematic culture of leguminous crops previous to the beginning of this test, we are not main- taining in the soil a supply of nitrogen sufficient for maximum crop produc- tion by simply growing one crop of clover in five years, the roots of which only are left in the ground, the tops being made into hay and removed from the land.” Hence it is evident that where it is desirable to have a rotation extending over five years there must be another leguminous crop introduced in order that the supply of nitrogen may be maintained for the production of maximum crops. This can easily be accomplished in a three or four year rotation, and farmers in sections where it has long been the practice to run the land in grass as long as the mowing could be kept good, before going back 98—Crorp GROWING AND Crop FEEDING to corn and small grain, are beginning to realize that they have been losing greatly by the practice, and that permanent pastures and a short rotation in the cultivated land are the things to be sought for. The reason for the desira- bility of the short rotation and the more frequent bringing in of the legumes is obvious if we reflect on the nature of the nitrogen. Most of the nitrogen collected by the legumes is in the form of organic matter in the roots left in the ground. We have shown that green plants do not use nitrogen till in the form of a nitrate. Hence this organic matter must go through the process of decay, and of change in the soil into a nitrate. This is, as we have seen, accomplished through the agency of the nitrifying microbes in the soil. When these have done their work, the nitrogen contained in the clover or pea roots is transformed into a nitrate, and if not then at once used by the plants it is rapidly washed out of the soil. Therefore, if there is a long interval between the crops of lezumes, we cannot keep up the supply of nitrogen in this way, and will have to resort to the purchase of complete fertilizers, which a short rotation would render needless. But as organic matter accumulates in the soil, forming humus, it is probable that the complete nitrification may be slower by reason of the increasing acidity which is less favorable to the activity of the nitrifying organisms. Then it is that the use of lime becomes an important adjunct and restores the favorable conditions for nitrification. With a three year rotation, a light dressing of lime once in each alternate round of the rotation (or once in six years), will be found a great aid in the development of the productivity of the soil. Or even a still lighter applica- tion every round of the rotation may prove best. A SHORT ROTATION BEST FOR SPECIALIZED FARMING. While we are convinced that the greatest evil in farming has been con- tinual cropping with a single crop, and that the only way towards the im- provement of the soil is through a diversified farming, this does not mean that a farmer should grow a little of everything his climate will produce. He should study his conditions carefully, and find out what is the best money crop for his section and his land, and then should contrive a rotation intended to best promote the success of his money crop. The wise farmer will always have a specialty, to the increased production of which he will bend all his energies, while endeavoring in every possible way to reduce the cost of its production by making his subsidiary crops aid in the defraying of the expenses. His specialty may be cotton, tobacco, wheat, corn or any other particular crop, and his aim should be to grow the money crop more cheaply and at the same time to greater perfection than anyone Ths THe MAINTENANCE OF FERTILITY—99 around him, if possible. It is not always the sign of the best farming for a man to grow a specially large crop of something on a small area of land. The phenomenal yields of corn, for instance, which have been produced in compe- titions for premiums, are interesting mainly as showing what can be done with heavy feeding and good culture, but they are usually financial failures. What we should aim at is to get the widest possible margin between the cost of the crop and its sale value. This calls for skillful management of the land, and the best of cultivation, as well as a wise selection of what is to be sold from the farm. Some of our Southern friends have imagined that the way out of the old one-crop farming is a diversification by which the farmer shall grow someting of everything his climate will allow, and shall not buy anything which he can grow. ‘This sort of aimless diversification is not what we want, but a systematized agriculture suited to the conditions under which the farmers live. The cotton farmer in the warm soils of the Southern seaboard could doubtless grow some wheat, but he will soon find that he can buy all the flour he needs more cheaply and of better quality then he can grow the wheat and have it manufactured on a small scale. The farmer in Southern Maryland could doubtless grow a little cotton, as they once did under the old home manufacturing practice, but he would soon find that he had better stick to his wheat or tobacco and buy his cotton goods. The same rule holds good in all parts of the country. The money crop of each section has become such through the operation of natural laws, and none can afford to ignore these. SOME OF THE MISTAKES MADE, When a farmer moves from one section to another having an entirely different soil and climate, he needs to study his new conditions well. He will in fact, have to unlearn a great deal and to learn things that he did not for- merly need to learn. Going into a new section, one is apt to imagine that he can do a great deal better than the people already thete, and as he has been a good farmer in his old location, he is apt to think that the same methods which were best there will be the best in his new location. The people among whom you have come may not be farming as well as they do in the section where you formerly lived, but there will always be practices in every old settled section which are the outgrowth of experience in that partic- ular soil and climate, and which a newcomer cannot afford to ignore. North- erm men coming into the cotton belt, as a rule, always want to grow something else rather than cotton. They see that under the old methods, the cotton farmers and the cotton farms have grown poor, while the fertilizer manufac- L. of C. 100—Crorp GROWING AND Crop FEEDING turers have grown rich. They therefore jump to the conclusion that cotton and fertilizers are bad things, and are wrong in both conclusions. The warm coast plain of the South could have no better money crop than cotton, and the commercial fertilizers, while bringing disaster to the farm and the farmer when used in the wasteful way in which they have been used, can be made, in the hands of a good farmer, the most potent means for building up the fertility of the soil. For a man to go into the cotton belt and engage in general farming and ignore cotton would be a great mistake, for no farmer, as a rule, can afford to ignore the money crop of his section, unless he has some specialty which takes him out of the list of general farmers. — It is true that there are large sections of the Southern uplands where cotton is grown and where it should never have been grown, and there, with the growth of knowledge in regard to farm methods, the farmers will soon learn that their lands are better adapted to grain, grass and stock than to cotton; and in other parts of the country the methods are undergoing a gradual change so that each particular section is finding out what it can best do, and what it should let alone. Specialization, with a properly arranged rotation, is the road to success. The growing of a single crop year after year on the same land, no matter how much commercial fertilizer you may buy, leads finally to poverty of soil and of the farmer, too. No matter what the crop the result is pretty sure to be the same. In the great peach growing section of Maryland and Delaware, the men who have been, as a rule, most successful in the long run, have not been the men who put their entire land into peaches; but rather those who recognized the adaptability of their soil and climate to peach culture, who made the short- lived peach trees simply a part of their farming and gave them the best at- tention, knowing that in a few years the orchard must go back to crops of a different nature, and must be kept up in its fertility to correspond with the other fields when one of these was taken for the orchard. Prof. Roberts in his book, “The Farmstead,” says, “Many farms in Western N. Y. have been almost exclusivel} devoted to the raising of grapes, which, when abundant, or moderately so, sold at ruinous prices. It is noticed that where only an eighth or fourth of a farm was devoted to vines, the yield was not only pro- portionately larger, but the quality better than where nearly all the land was used as a vineyard. Where diversified agriculture was carried on to a limited extent and plantations were restricted, the low price of grapes made no serious inroads on the income. Where all the land was given to grapes, work was intermittent, the farmer being overtasked at one season of the year and idle at another. The demoralizing effect on the farmers and their families of this army of unrestrained youths and loungers of the city, which, for a brief THE MAINTENANCE OF FERTILICFY—101 period, swarms into the districts devoted to specialized crops, as grapes, ber- ries and hops, is marked.” Single cropping is destructive to home life wherever it is practiced. In the cotton growing sections, the negro tenants, who grow no other crop, are idle during the winter; as it takes about all their share of the crop to pay the merchant who carried them during the summer, they are in a measure forced to live upon the country, and the whole system is an encour- agement to vice. If the tenants were compelled to farm in a systematic man- ner it would tend towards the building up of the land and the increased pros- perity of the tenant. There is no hope for the permanent improvement of the Southern cotton lands so long as the “cropping” system prevails. CHAPTER XII. HOW TO USE COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS FOR THE MAIN- TENANCE OF FERTILITY. The whole of the cotton growing section of the South Atlantic States furnishes an object lesson of the ruin that comes about through the inju- dicious use of commercial fertilizers, and the growing of cotton on the same land year after year. This is most plainly seen on the rolling, red clay uplands. Steep hillsides, which a wise agriculture would have left in the protecting forest cover, have been cleared and cultivated in cotton. As the humus in the soil was exhausted, the red clay tended to wash into gullies under the great down pour of summer rains that prevail. Year after year the gullies have been made larger till cultivation became impossible, and now all over the upland country of the South these ruined and irreclaimable hillsides are staring the traveler by rail in the face, and giving a bad impression of the whole country; and all the rivers run loaded with the wasted fertility of the soil. Thousands of acres of these gullied hillsides can only be redeemed by a restoration of the great forest cover, which should never have been removed in the first place. The soil and the thousands of dollars’ worth of fertilizers which have been wasted in the culture of these hills are both gone, and the land has been literally used up for a few crops of cotton. Under former conditions, when the large plantations with their army of slaves were in their prime, a notion prevailed that cotton was the one crop that would not fit into an improving rotation. Before the introduction of commercial fertilizers the practice was to cultivate a piece of upland as long as it would pay to grow the crop, and then to take up another piece, letting the first grow up in pines. With the change in labor conditions, and the introduction of commercial fertilizers, it was found that the old land could be made to produce a crop, and then the farmers imagined that all they had to do to get a crop of cotton was to use commercial fertilizers. These have been mainly purchased on credit, with the invariable result that the manufacturers, in order to protect (102) CoMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS FOR MAINTENANCE OF FERTILITY—103 themselves against loss, have been obliged to charge high prices for their goods. So long as the cotton only, was sold, and the seed was returned to the land, the depreciation was slower. But of late years the great demand for the seed in the manufacture of oil has led to many selling the seed outright, imagining that they were making an additional profit from the crop. While it is true that some farmers exchange their cotton seed for meal and oil to advantage, there are thousands who sell them regularly. This is especially true of the tenant croppers whose interest in the land is less than their inter- est in the immediate crop. The oil, being one of the products of the plant which was derived from the assimilation of carbon from the air, has no value as a manure to the farmer, and where a fair exchange can be made, it is better for the farmer to make the exchange and get the more readily available nitro- gen in meal, while the hulls will make a good absorbent of manure. It is true that they are largely used as food for stock, but they are at best only a makeshift of the poor farmer, for there is not a section in all the cotton belt where far better food may not be grown, while at the same time the crop that furnishes the food will help the land. One of the saddest sights one sees daily in this cotton country is a farmer, or rather a man who is cultivating the soil, hauling home from the city oil mill, baled cotton seed hulls to feed his mules with. And this in a country where the finest crops of the best hay in the world can be grown from the cow pea, and the land made better for cotton production by reason of the forage growth. The whole crop, seed and all, was sold, and now the farmer buys back the poorest part of the crop to feed the mules. And this is not the worst of the whole sad business, for the cotton must not only pay for the mule feed, but for the mules themselves, for the idea of keeping a breeding animal never seems to enter the minds of the men who are working in the one crop of cotton; the cotton must carry the whole burden while the soil gets poorer and poorer. I write of these things particularly because they are daily before me, but there are farmers whose interest is in other crops, who are doing as badly as the cotton farmers. We recently traveled and spoke at Farmers’ Institutes in the State of Maryland, in sections where the farmers are improving in many respects, and are paying attention to stock and the dairy, and over the wide, level fields where the corn binder could run with profit, | saw the old time method of topping the corn and stripping the blades still practiced, and the stalks and husks left in the field; thus sacrificing a large amount of food that the shredder would have turned to profit in the feeding of cattle. In the great corn growing sections of the Central West, too, we see the same waste of food and lack of interest in the complete utili- zation of the greatest forage crop of America, the Indian corn crop. There 104—Crorp GrRowInG AND Crop FEEDING is not a section of all the corn growing belt where there is not much of this waste, and where thousands of cattle could not be fed instead of the hundreds that are fed. And even in the greatest corn growing sections of Ohio, Indi- ana and Illinois, there are farmers who write to us asking for fertilizer formulas for the restoration of the productiveness of their lands; while they are annually wasting food that would turn them a profit in feeding, and give manure for the acres that are hungry for it. Properly managed, there is no part of the corn plant that cannot be profitably utilized as food for stock, and the greatest leak today in American agriculture is in the waste of corn stover all over the land. No farmer, no matter how fresh and fertile his | soil, can afford to plow corn stalks into his land, when, by proper treatment that will largely increase the stock supporting capacity of his farm. While commercial fertilizers are useful and even indispensable in these high pressure days, no farmer can afford to neglect the manurial resources of the farm itself, or waste what would give him profit if rightly handled and fed. THE ROTATION FOR THE COTTON FARM. In all the true cotton country, the sandy and level lands along the coast and extending one or two hundred miles or more inland, and the widespread prairie lands of Texas, cotton can be grown in an improving rotation as the special money crop to the greatest advantage. In all the South Atlantic coast country the use of commercial fertilizers in some way has become a ne- cessity. The Texas cotton growers as yet may not feel the need of them, but it is only a question of a few years when they will need them, unless a wiser method of farming with cotton is adopted. The Experiment Stations in the cotton country have spent a great deal of time and labor on the study of the manurial requirements of the cotton crop, and far too little time on the dem- onstration of the most economical methods of meeting these requirements. Formulas without number have been devised for cotton and other crops, until the farmer has been led to suppose that all he needs to grow the crop is a formula for a fertilizer. While the investigations of the Stations have demonstrated the needs of certain plants in the way of food, with great pre- cision, there is now a great need for the demonstration of economical methods for the bringing about of these conditions in the soil. While it has been demonstrated that the cotton plant needs nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash in certain proportions, it by no means follows that these should be purchased annually for the purpose, if by proper farming we can accumulate any of them in the soil for the crop. The great need in all the cotton country, the need that no purchase of fertilizers will ever fully meet, and without COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS FOR MAINTENANCE OF FERTILITY—105 which the development of the productive character of the Southern uplands must be slow; is the keeping of cattle and sheep, and the growing of forage crops for their feeding in a profitable manner. “But,” said a cotton farmer to the writer, when he was urging the feeding of cattle as the very foundation of profitable farming, North or South, “I do not want to be pestered with eattle, for I can buy a lot of fertilizer every spring and make a profit out of it in the growing of cotton.” This man, fortunately, has a large body of very fine Jand, well supplied with humus, and on which commercial fertilizers act very finely; doubtless what he said was true and that he does make a profit in cotton farming with heavy doses of fertilizer on his land. But it would be easy to demonstrate that the profit would be much larger and the outlay for fertilizers much less by farming instead of merely planting his land. But there are thousands of farms in the South which have been so com- pletely run down by bad culture that even the application of fertilizers by a Station formula gives no profit. It is a common practice among the larger cotton farmers to figure everything by the mule. ‘The area of land does not enter into the calculation, but only what they can clear from each man and mule in the cotton field. At ten cents per pound, a man and a mule can make, on land yielding half a bale per acre, about $600 worth of cotton. This $600 must pay for the fer- tilizer used on the land, and must feed the mule and the négro for a year, while the same land probably could be, in a little while, brought to the pro- duction of a bale per acre with less direct expenditure of fertilizers, is farmed instead of being merely planted. In all of our Southern cities the refrig- erator cars from Chicago are daily bringing beef for our consumption, in a _country where more and better forage can be grown than in the West; and where men are planting thousands of acres in cotton with hardly a hoof on the land except the mules which work the fields in summer and loaf all winter. A proper rotation for a cotton farm involves the feeding of stock. The feeding of stock requires forage and grain. The growing and harvesting of forage and grain and the feeding of stock in winter, requires regular labor from year’s end to year’s end, and gives steady employment and a better class of laborers by reason of the steady work. It means cash coming in at different seasons, which enables the farmer to buy for cash, and thus lightens greatly the expense falling on the cotton crop. It makes the farmer a reader and a student, and in this way has its influence on the home, for when people get interested in books they soon improve in the home making. During the late depression in the price of cotton the writer was con- tinually being appealed to by cotton farmers for information in regard to the 106—Crorp GROWING AND Crop FEEDING culture of one crop or another, which the writers wanted to put in in the place of cotton. They had always been giving cotton too large a place, but their only idea of farming seemed to be the “making of a crop” of some kind to sell. Some wanted to go into broom corn, some into sunflowers for the oil, some into hops or some other crop about which they knew nothing, and many of which were entirely unsuited to the Southern climate, as the hop is. We have tried earnestly to impress on the writers that the only hope of the South lies in better farming with the staple crops we have, and an utter abandonment of the cotton cropping idea. “But I cannot afford to put my land in crops that will pay me less money than I can get from the land in cotton,” is what we are continually being told by men whose cotton costs them 6 to 8 cents per pound, when by better farming and the growing of forage and feeding of cattle they could grow the cotton for half what it now costs them, and this, too, with a more liberal expenditure for fertilizers than they now use, but used in a different way. WHAT IS THE BEST ROTATION FOR COTTON? Bulletin No. 43 of the Georgia Station makes the following statement in regard to the rotation practiced there. “At the beginning of the ex- istence of the Station, nine years ago, a regular system of rotation was in- augurated, and with occasional modification, it has been continued to the present time. ‘This system is what would be called a three year shift, and is as follows: First. year: Oats, liberally fertilized, followed by cow peas with 200 pounds of acid phosphate per acre. The cow peas, as a rule, were made into hay.° Second year: Cotton, liberally fertilized. Third year: Corn. At the beginning liberally fertilized, but later, mod- erately fertilized.. Cow peas were sown in the corn, sometimes in hills at second plowing, but generally broadcast at the third plowing. Peas gathered for seed supply. A part of the corn for several years past has been cut down, stalk and all, and put into the silo. After the corn, the land was again sown in oats in October or early November, thus commencing a second round of the three year rotation. The Director does not hesitate to say (and in this opinion he is sustained by the Agriculturist), that the increased productive- ness of the farm is due more to the adoption and maintenance of a regular system of rotation of crops, than to any one policy or practice.” The bulletin further states: “On most small farms that are devoted to cotton and corn and minor crops, and where very few animals are kept, there will not be more manure from this source than will be required by the kitchen garden and the COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS FOR MAINTENANCE OF FERTILITY—107 truck and forage patches around the residence and barn. For the outlying fields, more or less remote from the house, reliance should be placed on the system of rotation already outlined, in which small grain and cow peas are leading features, aided by a judicious use of concentratetd fertilizers. As the system develops, and after it has been in operation a few years, the necessity for these concentrated fertilizers will be less urgent, a smaller quantity will be required, and increasing profits will accrue.” ' In the main there can be no great objection to the plan of the Georgia Station. What we do object to, however, is the statement that on small farms there will be proportionately less manure made than on a large one. If the rotation advised is followed, there will be a considerable amount of forage produced in the shape of oats straw, corn fodder and pea vine hay, and, whether the farm be large or small, this should be fed on the place, to cattle, and the result will be that there will be as much manure in proportion to the area under cultivation on the small farm as on a larger one under the three year rotation. A long experience in the culture of Southern lands has shown us that the great advantage of the three year rotation lies in the more frequent bringing on the soil of a leguminous feed crop, and the*practicability of finally making manure enough to broadcast one-third of the area annually. Dribbling a little manure around on the better lots about the barn will take a long time to restore the fertility of the farm, the produce of which is being used only on a limited area. The small farm is the place for the manure spreader with all of its manure-spreading economy. | In practicing a good three year rotation with cotton, and feeding all the forage grown, as well as the corn and oats, the cotton farmer can make live stock an important part of his profits while increasing his manure accumu- lation. Another point of importance in the Georgia rotation is the fact that every crop grown is supplied with commercial fertilizers in large or small quantity. At the usual market price for corn we have never been able to get back the cost of a complete fertilizer applied to this crop. The corn field is the place for the manurial accumulation of the farm, and a well arranged three year rotation will, in a few years, enable the farmer to make manure enough for his corn. Growing through the long heated season, when the nitrification is most active in the organic matter, corn can make a better use of the manure than any other crop, while at the same time there will be a residue well incorporated with the soil that will carry the oats through without the further addition of commercial fertilizers. Then with a more liberal appli- cation of acid phosphate and potash to the oat stubble the great nitrogen- collecting crop of the rotation, the cow pea, will make a great crop of forage, 108—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING and leave in the stubble nitrogen enough to carry the succeeding cotton crop, with the aid of the seed made by the preceding crop, or the meal exchanged for the seed. For a few years in the first start of the improvement of a worn cotton farm it may be necessary to add some acid phosphate to the cotton seed meal; this, too, can soon be dispensed with, and the only commercial fer- tilizers that need be bought through the whole three years will be the acid phosphate and potash for the peas. When you reach this point cotton growing becomes profitable, even if the price goes lower than the ordinary cropper can grow it for. Your well fed cattle will pay all the expenses of your farming, and leave the manure and the cotton crop as profit. This is no mere theory, for it is being done successfully, and in the hands of some enterprising men the crop of winter oats has assumed an importance from the great crops grown that makes them, too, an important money crop. The way out of the slavery of the cotton farmer to the fertilizer mixer lies through the growing of forage and the feeding of cattle, and the working of his land in a systematic rotation contrived for the best success of the cotton crop through making the best success with the forage crops. A permanent pasture for summer is an important part of the improvement of a cotton farm. Fortunately there is the Bermuda grass, a plant admirably suited to the needs of the cotton farmer. It suits his soil, it suits his climate, and it grows in perfect defiance of heat, and will enable him to carry through all the cattle he needs for feeding in the winter. With a permanent pasture of Bermuda grass, the cotton farmer never needs to pasture his fields where his crops are grown, but can keep them at all times growing something either for sale or feeding. A profitable and practicable rotation, then, for a cotton farm, will be to begin with land that has yet to be improved and gotten into a more productive condition. First year: Cotton, with a good dressing of a complete fertilizer broad- cast, at rate of 400 pounds per acre. In September sow among the cotton 15 pounds per acre of crimson clover and one bushel of rye. If the clover fails, the rye will make a green cover crop to ward off waste in winter. During the winter get out and spread all the farm accumulation of manure on the rye and clover. Second year: Plow under the rye and clover with the manure for the corn crop. Turn them under deeply, and then work the crop rapidly and frequently, but perfectly level and shallow and avoid all earthing up with a plow. No turning plow should ever be allowed in the corn or cotton field. At last working, sow cow peas all through the corn. Gather your seed from these for the next year’s sowing. Cut the corn and cure in shocks and dise the peas over and sow winter turf oats. CoMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS FOR MAINTENANCE OF FERTILITY—109 Third year: Cut the oats and at once plow the land well and harrow in 300 pounds per acre of acid phosphate and 50 pounds of muriate of potash, and after a rain has followed the harrowing drill in one and a half bushels of peas per acre. When these are mature, and the first pods are turning vellow, cut them for hay and cure for feed. Disk the stubble over and sow Crimson clover in September to be plowed under for cotton in the spring. It will be well to sow a little rye as a shade to the young clover. With a good stand of clover and rye you will need little fertilizer for the cotton crop that now begins the rotation over again, but for a while it may be well to use a little acid phosphate on the cotton. One of the best plans for using the cotton seed is that devised by a good farmer in South Carolina. This is to bury the cotton seed in a furrow down the middles. If any seed sprouts it can easily be destroyed in the cultivation of the crop, and the seed will be rotted and ready to feed the plants when fruiting time comes and the roots are searching across the rows. After two or three rounds of this rotation you will find that the only place where you will need any commercial fer- tilizers is on the land to go into peas after oats. Year after year you will be getting more and more forage to feed cattle and can make more and more manure, till finally you will have no difficulty in getting enough to cover the corn-tend, if uniformly spread with the machine. And, better than all, you will have the cattle to bring in money in the spring, so that you can get upon a cash basis and reduce expenses through buying for cash. The general experience at the Stations in the cotton belt has been that the use of commercial fertilizers is of special value to the cotton crop in hastening its maturity, while in some instances the use of stable manure had the effect of delaying the maturing of the crop. The corn crop on the farm can use the crude manures from the stock to better advantage than the cotton crop, and by the time the land comes around in cotton again, the manure is better assimilated with the soil, and is in better condition to suit the cotton plant. In the continuous planting of cotton on the same land there has been noticed a cumulative effect from the previous dressings where these have been in liberal amount.. In Alabama and Arkansas it was found that nitrogenous manures increased the yield the second season without additional fertiliza- tion, but had lost their effect by the third season. In Alabama the phos- phatic fertilizers increased the yield for three seasons without further applications, and in Eastern North Carolina there seems to have been so much accumulation of phosphoric acid that acid phosphate no longer has any effect when applied as a fertilizer to most of the lands that are cultivated in cotton. In Alabama the application of pulverized rock phosphate, or what is commonly called “floats,” in which the chemist finds that the phosphoric 110—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING acid is all insoluble, increased the yield for two successive seasons, and farmers are gradually finding out that this material, when placed in the soil, rapidly becomes soluble enough for plants to get the use of it, and since it can be sold for half the price of the dissolved rock it will be well for farmers to experi- ment with it, and see if the cost of fertilization cannot be further decreased. Several Stations report that the effect of kainit, or crude potash salt, is to prevent rust in the cotton, aside from the value the potash may have as a fertilizer, but it also seems to have the effect of retarding the opening of the bolls. In South Carolina it was found that the application of marl alone, or in connection with the commercial fertilizers, is of no direct value to the cotton crop. But when marl is used as an application to leguminous crops in storing up organic matter in the soil for the cotton, it has a very great indirect value. In Alabama it was found that air slaked lime mixed in the drill with acid phosphate had no apparent effect on cotton; in fact, it would seem that it might have an injurious effect in making the phosphate less soluble. Nitrate of soda has been profitably applied at two dressings between planting time and June 1st. Better results have been had from fertilizers worked in shallowly than those buried deeply for cotton. From the various experiments of the Stations, the Office of Experiment Stations reaches the following general conclusions, in regard to the cultivation and fertilization of the cotton crop, taking also into the account the experience of successful cotton growers. It is evident that cotton is a plant. that responds promptly, liberally and profitably to judicious fertilization. The practice general in the South we do not regard as judicious, since under it the productiveness of the land has gradually been decreased, until the soil is not in the best condition to apply lilberal quantities of commercial fertili- zers, by reason of the exhaustion of the humus supply in the soil, through the continuous planting of cotton aided by scanty supplies of fertilizers. But by judicious fertilization with these same commercial fertilizers in con- nection with proper farming, the maturity of the crop may be hastened and its period of growth shortened so as to materially increase the area northward where the cotton crop may be profitably grown. But this judicious use of fertilizers involves the antecedent preparation of the soil. A soil deficient in humus, or decayed organic matter, is not only in a-bad mechanical condi- tion, but is in a poor condition to receive liberal applications of commercial fertilizers, since it is more subject to drought by reason of the absence of the moisture-retaining humus, and_ hence, cannot dissolve the fertilizers. Therefore, the higher “tilth” we get our lands into, the heavier application of fertilizers we can profitably use. The culture of the cow pea as a renovating crop is essential COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS “FOR MAINTENANCE OF FrRTILITY—111 in the cotton belt to the restoration of those new ground conditions which all planters have noticed are so favorable to the profitable culture of cotton. On lands newly cleared from the forest every cotton farmer has noticed that the crop is not only more certain without the fertilizers, but that a heavier application of fertilizers can be more profitably made than on an old field that has so long been in the crop that it has lost the black humus that the new land has so plentifully. Therefore, the effort of the farmer should be towards the keeping up of these soil conditions where they exist and the restoration of them where they have been exhausted, and in no way can this be done so economically as through the culture of the “clover of the South,” the cow pea. Not that the cotton farmer should sacrifice a valuable feed crop as manure direct to his land, for the cutting of the hay and the feeding of it to stock is far more business-like and profitable than the burying of the whole growth at once in the soil. The roots and stubble contain a large amount of the manurial value, and by saving the manure carefully the land loses little of the tops, while feeding can be made an important part of the farm profits. Barnyard and stable manures are more profitable to the cotton planter, as a means for the bulking up of his soil with organic matter, and for the forma- tion of the important humus, than as manures direct to the crop; for we have seen that crude manures may tend to delay the ripening of the crop. Drib- bling a little manure or compost of manure in the row is not the best way to get a stand of cotton, and is far from being the best way to improve the soil. All home-made manures, and all woods-mold collected, should be spread broadcast over the whole soil. As we have said, the place for these crude manures is on the corn crop following the cotton and preceding the oats or wheat, so that by the time the field comes around again in cotton, in a three- year rotation, the remaining manure has been reduced to a state of humus and aids the commercial fertilizer applied to the cotton crop in doing its work. The editor from whose work we glean these conclusions, says that cotton may be wisely assigned a place in a judicious rotation, and suggests a rotation of small grain, followed by corn with peas, and then cotton; and adds that each crop should be properly fertilized. To this rotation we see the objection that there are no peas for mowing and making hay for stock, and no mention of making manure. Now, as the feeding of live stock is at the very foundation of all rational farm improvement, in the cotton as well as the corn field, the rotation that does not provide a _ forage crop other than corn is defective. Then, too, while an application of fertilizer to every crop grown may produce an increase of the crop, it is not always profitable farming. One of the chief values of a good rotation, to my mind, is to enable the farmer to increase the productiveness of his 112—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING soil, while gradually using less of the purchased fertilizer, until he needs to buy none but phosphoric acid, and perhaps potash, and these for the pea crop alone; for by a proper rotation and the production of a plentiful supply of forage crops, that will go to make together a balanced ration for cattle, he can supply his soil all the nitrogen needed; and éan accumulate fertility in the land till his money crop is produced in its highest excellence, without any direct application of commercial fertilizer. The investigations of the Stations in the study of the manurial requirements of the various crops, have had the effect of getting farmers to think that for every crop planted they must have a special fertilizer. Good farming with cotton or any other crop does not mean merely the production of large crops; but in the production of crops at the lowest possible expense, while increasing the fertility of the soil. It is not good farming to teach farmers that they need make an application of fertilizer to every crop planted, and we will never get them to see the value of a rotation, till we show that a rotation can do what we have said is good farming. One of the labor-wasting practices long in vogue among cotton farmers in the South, is what is called composting. Having but little manure from the few cattle kept, and that of poor quality from the poor and scant feed, they go to work to haul a lot of soil from woods and fence rows and mix with the manure, and turn and chop it down with the notion that they are making the whole good manure. And then this laboriously made pile of dirt, is dribbled in a parsimonious way, in the furrows under the cotton ; the only use it has being to enable the plant to use better the fertilizer they add to it. It takes our farmers a long time to realize that it is far cheaper to grow the organic matter all over the soil, ready spread, than to pile and turn it and haul to the field; and that far more of it can be grown there than can be hauled there by any one. The rotation we prefer for a three-year rotation with cotton has already been given, and the experience of those who have adopted it has abundantly proved its correctness. While in the first stages of the building up of a poor piece of cotton land, it may be advisable to apply some fertilizer to each crop planted, the farmer who strictly follows the three-year rotation we have given, will soon find that all the commercial fertilizer he needs to buy will be acid phosphate and potash for the peas, and the peas will do all the rest, if they are properly fed to stock ; while, at the same time, they are feeding the soil direct. Our Editor of the Office of Experiment Stations further says, that, on the great majority of the soils of the Cotton States it is advisable to use as a concentrated fertili- zer, a complete manure; that is one containing soluble phosphoric acid, available phosphoric acid and available nitrogen, rather than a manure containing only one or two of these ingredients. This may be true if the COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS FOR MAINTENANCE OF FERTILITY—113 farmer is to continue to grow cotton continuously without rotation, but it is not true for the farmer who feeds stock and grows forage to feed them with from the cow pea and the corn plant. In fact, what a farmer should use will depend on the nature of his soil, for, as we have already seen, there is a considerable district in Eastern North Carolina where phosphoric acid is not needed in the soil, and there are other districts where potash is needless, while in all the cotton belt the nitrogen needed can be had in larger quantity and more cheaply in the cow pea than in a commercial fertilizer. While analysis may show that the cotton plant needs a complete fertilizer, this does not show that we need buy all the constituents of such a fertilizer, for all our soils and all conditions of culture. The editor well adds, afterwards, that the nitrogen may be omitted where it is supplied through animal manures, or what he in the language of the press calls green manuring. And right here I would repeat what I have often said, that what is called in Northern latitudes “green manuring,” is not applicable to Southern con- ditions. In the cooler climate of the North and the heavy clay of the glacial drift, it may be practicable to plow under green crops; in the sandy soil and warm climate of the cotton belt, such a practice would be simply suicidal to the interests of the cotton farmer, for he would not only sour his soil, but he would cut short the work the legumes are doing for him before they had fairly completed it. Hence, for the South at least, we should drop entirely the misleading phrase “green manuring,” since no such practice is applicable to Southern conditions. But while green manuring cannot be practiced in the South as it is in the North, there is an even greater need for the growing of the green manure crops, for the purpose of getting forage and making manure, and for getting the nitrogen collecting work of the legumes completely done. While soluble phosphates, like acid phosphate, are best for their immediate effect on the cotton crop, there seems to be no doubt that the insoluble floats may be profitably used after a while in the promotion ef the growth of the pea crop, and to accumulate there for the use of the cotton crop, that should follow the peas. Kainit, muriate of potash and sulphate of potash present the potash to the cotton plant as fertilizer in an equal manner, and the only difference is in the cost. Kainit, while of special value aside from its use as a fertilizer, in that it has a tendency to prevent blight, is, in most places, the most costly form, since it has but 12 per cent. of potash, and its use involves the freighting of a large amount of useless material; while the muriate has 50 per cent. of potash and a smaller quantity need be freighted to get what potash we want. As a nitrogenous manure for cotton, the cotton farmer can usually get all that he needs by exchanging his cotton seed at the oil mill for meal and hulls, and while he may use, if 114—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING he chooses, a little nitrate of soda as a starter for the cotton, the organic nitrogen will usually be the best form for the sustenance of the crop during the season. Therefore, it is more than ever apparent that the organic nitro- gen from the pea roots is the best form of nitrogen we can get. Much work has been done by the Stations in the Cotton States in the study of the propor- tions in which the various constituents of a complete fertilizer should be used. In Georgia they claim that the proportion should be nitrogen 1, potash 1, phosphoric acid 3144. In South Carolina, nitrogen 1, potash %4, phosphoric acid 214; while in North Carolina, where in a large part of the cotton belt phosphoric acid is not needed, the law requires that a complete fertilizer allowed to be sold must not contain less than 8 per cent. of phos- phoric acid. This law is about to be changed now, however. Quoting further from the Office of Experiment Stations we find it stated that the amount of concentrated fertilizer which may be profitably used per acre on the cotton crop, varies widely with the nature and condition of the soil, the seasons and other circumstances. For an average soil in fairly good con- dition, perhaps the maximum amounts indicated in Georgia—nitrogen, 20 pounds, potash, 20 pounds, phosphoric acid, 70 pounds, or South Carolina —nitrogen, 20 pounds, potash, 15 pounds, phosphoric acid, 50 pounds, or an approximate mean between the two, would be the maximum limit of the profitable application. This would mean the application of over 800 pounds per acre of an average cotton fertilizer, an amount which, if applied to the worn uplands of the cotton country, would do more harm than good, but which can be used only on soils of a moist nature and well supplied with humus. While 700 to 800 pounds of a complete fertilizer may be used on such lands, the larger part of the old lands of the upland country, in the Cotton States, could not safely apply more than half that quantity, until through good farming and the accumulation of organic matter in the soil they have prepared the land to receive such a liberal dressing. Quoting from the same source we find it stated that the concentrated fertilizer should be applied in the drill and not broadcast, at a depth of not more than three inches, and well mixed with the soil. To the first part of this statement we have a serious objection, and there is every reason why the fertilizer should be applied not alone in the drill but broadcast. Cotton spreads its roots far and wide, and as the feeding roots’ hairs are out near the tips of the roots they soon get away from the little that is directly under them and are foraging in a poor soil, so that at the most critical time of the crop, the fruiting time, the plants have less food at their command than at any other time. Then, too, if as large an application as 700 to 800 pounds per acre of a complete fertilizer is used, the application in the drill alone of that COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS FOR MAINTENANCE OF FERTILITY—115 amount would probably be disastrous to the getting of a stand of cotton, for it would burn the roots up. Then, further, it is stated that all things con- sidered, it is best to make the application all at one time, that where the land is in superior condition and a large application is used it is probably profit- able to apply half at planting and half at the second plowing. Then this second half would certainly not be in the drill, but would be just where we would have put it in the beginning, in the middles of the rows. We have quoted thus largely from a review of the work of the Experi- ment Stations in the Cotton States, to show that the experimenters themselves have not been able to get away from the old traditions of the cotton field. They have done a great deal of work in determining the food requirements of the cotton crop, but are as badly in the ruts in regard to the culture of the crop as the planters themselves. All the old practice of fertilizing in the furrow and making a bed of soil above it, plowing first, second or third times, are all relics of the old ruts from which it is time cotton growers were get- ting out. Fertilizing in the furrow is not the way to bring up the pro- ductiveness of the land for any crop. Deep preparation of the soil, planting on the flat surface, and then shallow and _ perfectly flat culture should be the rule. There is no more need for a plow in the cotton field after the crop is planted than there is in a corn field, and the methods that are best for the one are of equal advantage for the other. Cotton was grown here the past season on well prepared land perfectly flat. It was cultivated with a smoothing harrow and a weeder till over six inches high and then with a small tooth cultivator the rest of the season, and never hilled in the slightest degree; and that cotton went through a season of un- precedented drought and heat better than any plowed and hilled cotton around it. Then, too, the everlasting directions that have been given the farmers about the particular amount and kind of fertilizer that should be used have confused them to such an extent that they think that all they need is a formula for the preparation of a fertilizer. There is much need of ener- getic work on the part of the Stations in the Cotton States to show the farmers the best methods of improving their soil for the production of the cotton crop, and the means through which they may be relieved from the necessity of buying a complete fertilizer for every crop they plant. Good farming is needed more in the Cotton States than any more knowledge re- garding fertilizers, for those who get to doing good farming will naturally use what fertilizers they need in a more liberal manner. Then again, the experiments in fertilizers with any crop on the soil of the Experiment Station, at one point in a State as large as Georgia or North Carolina, can hardly be of much use to a large part of the farmers in those States, who are growing 116—Crorp GROWING AND Crop FEEDING cotton on a different soil, and to give to farmers the proportions in which they should mix their fertilizers to make a complete cotton fertilizer is pure quackery, and should not be indulged in by men engaged in scientific investi- gation. The methods of culture need more improvement than the fertiliza- tion of the crop, for these are the same they were a hundred years ago, and the everlasting fertilizer investigations at the Stations are only keeping up the old practices. The Southern cotton grower needs to be taught more about eeonomical methods in farming than he does about mere application of fertilizers, and he needs to be taught the most economical, and at the same time most liberal, way to use these fertilizers, in the building up of his soil rather than in the squeezing out of a little more sale crop. CURING THE PEA VINE HAY. In farming for cotton in this way, the pea vine hay is an important item. There has long been a notion that the vines are hard to cure. We have proved year after year that there is no hay more easily cured, and none better for any stock kept on the farm, from the pig to the horse. The methods in common use heretofore in the South have usually resulted in the loss of the leaves, the best part of the hay, and in the production of a mass of hard sticks, instead of the hay that can be made. We have time and again given our method of managing the hay crop. It is hard to give directions that will fit all conditions of the plant, and the weather. Peas that have grown rankly on fertile soil will make great, thick stems that are more slow to cure, and in such case the sowing should be made thicker so that the stems will not get so stout. Ordinarily one bushel of seed per acre is enough, but on strong land, where they are apt to grow too rank, the seeding of one and a half bushels per acre will make a finer hay. When the first pods are turning yellow, but none dry, cut the hay with a mower with the track marker off. If the weather is bright and warm, let them lie for 24 hours and then rake into windrows. Next day turn the wind- rows in the morning and dry them off. If the weather is still hot, the hay may get dry enough to haul in that afternoon. The test as to its dryness is to take a handful and give it a hard twist. If you can see no sap run to the twist it will do to go in the barn, provided there is no external moisture on it.- Store in as large a mass as possible, and the tighter the barn the better, but it will cure in a rather open barn. While curing in the barn do not disturb it on any account, as you will cause it to mold if you let the air into it while hot. Let it strictly alone and it will cure all right, will be per- fectly green in color and sweet for the stock. Now this is no theory, for we COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS FOR MAINTENANCE OF FERTILITY—117 do it every year without a failure, and yet we have had farmers write that their hay molded. I suppose it requires some judgment and experience, but I have tried to give the method that has been a success with me, and can see no reason why it should not be a success anywhere. If rain falls on the hay in the field, spread the windrows and dry off well before housing. Rain will do little damage, far less than it would to clover hay, but it will darken it and should be avoided if possible. Once catch on to the right way and you will have no difficulty in making the finest hay in the world. Farming for cotton without the cow pea, the clover of the South, will always, on our worn uplands, be a losing business. RESTING THE LAND. There has long been a practice in the cotton country of “resting” the land, by allowing it to grow up in weeds and grass each alternate year. Feeling that constant annual cropping in cotton was bad, the farmers came to the conclusion that the soil was “tired,” and needed a rest. Of course the accumulation of organic matter through the idle season added a little to the land, and the resting was better than the constant culture without systematic rotation. But intelligent farmers all over the South are rapidly learning that the best way to rest land is to keep it at work growing some- thing of value between the sale crops; something that will help recuperate the land better than a crop of weeds, and the wise farmer now keeps all land, vacant of crops in Summer, covered with peas. ANOTHER COTTON ROTATION. We have given what we consider the best rotation for a large part of the coast country of the South. But there is a large section of the upland red clay country where cotton is still the money crop, and where wheat flourishes well. There the same three year rotation can be made a success by putting wheat in the place of winter oats. But where both crops are wanted, the rotation can be extended to four years and another crop of pea hay gotten in. In this case the peas after oats will ‘be followed by wheat, and this again by peas fertilized with potash and acid phosphate, preparatory to the crop of cotton. One of the chief ideas in a rotation is to keep the land covered as much as possible by growing crops. Our Southern soils have lost fertility as much by lying bare in the winter as by the summer cropping. Never let the land lie all winter without some green cover crop. This will not only add humus-making material to the soil, but it has been found that 118—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING where the land is covered with green plants in winter there is little if any loss of nitrogen, but where it les bare there is a great leaching of nitrates. A cover crop is of far more importance in the South than in the North. Here we have more rain than hard freezing, and the soluble nitrates are rapidly washed out of the bare soil. What we would especially impress on the cotton farmer is the fact that thorough preparation of the soil, clean, flat culture and a good rotation, are far more important to success than the kind and amount of fertilizers he may apply to the crop. I would like to help the Southern farmer out of the slavish dependence on fertilizers, merely for the purpose of getting a little more out of the soil to sell, and to show him that the true place for the plant food in the fertilizer is where it will en- courage the crops that feed his stock, and through them feed his farm. Used in this way you may use the fertilizers liberally, and in no other way do they so well supplement the home-made supply of manure. We hear a good deal about making the manure go as far as it will and then supplement it with fertilizers, but the true way to supplement the manure is to use the fertilizers for the manure-making crop. The phosphoric acid and the potash are then retained on the farm and their use enables you to get a far greater supply of the costly nitrogen. A very intelligent South Carolina gentleman recently wrote to me: “You are continually urging our farmers to grow more peas and to cure them for cattle, but you overlook the fact that they have not the cattle to feed them to, and they have not the fences to enclose the cattle ;” and he might have added that in their single cropping they have gotten so dead poor that they cannot buy the stock nor build the fences they need. But even to these men the pea will bring help if not utilized as it should be, for we must never lose sight of the fact that the great value of the pea in the South and of clover in the North, lies in the accumulation and maintenance of humus in the soil, and that the greatest value of humus, aside from its furnishing some nitrogen, lies in its making the soil more retentive of moisture, and thus enabling the farmer to use commercial fertilizers more profitably. The most successful cotton farmers we know are the men who are growing cotton on the level black lands of Eastern North Carolina. These men are able to use an amount of fertilizer per acre that would be destructive to the cotton farm on the dry uplands. They apply from 600 to 800 pounds per acre of a complete fertilizer, and claim that they make it pay. They certainly grow fine crops. They are able to use this amount of fertilizer because of the superior capacity of their soil, which is well supplied with humus, for the retention of moisture for the solution of the fertilizers applied. Hence the plants get the use of it in the best manner. The single cropper on the COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS FOR MAINTENANCE OF FERTILITY—119 uplands could not grow the crop the coast farmer does with any such appli- cation. The chances are that he would burn his crop instead of benefiting it. This is because his soil has lost its humus and lacks the capacity for the retention of moisture which the low farm has. Here, then, hes the secret of the improvement of the upland farm; the growing of the pea purely for the benefit of the soil, even if not fed, as it should be, to stock, for through its agency he not only gets added fertility from the air but added capacity for using increased applications of fertilizers; for it is a fact that the use of fertilizers is more profitable on a fertile farm than.on a dead poor one. The past hot and dry summer was one of the most remarkable illustrations of the truth of this we have ever seen. All over the State on the thin and dry lands the crop was remarkably short, and the fertilizers applied were almost entirely wasted by reason of the fact that the plants could not get them in the dry soil. But here and there were men who have been practicing pea culture for the benefit of their land, and have thus increased its moisture retaining character, who made a good crop and got the benefit of the fertilizers they applied to the crop. It is evident, then, that even where the cotton farmer is not wise enough, or is not able to feed stock, the peas are still the best means he can employ for the improvement of his crops and the maintenance of the pro- ductivity of his soil. CHAPTER XIII. WHERE WINTER WHEAT IS THE MONEY CROP. A study of the manurial requirements of the wheat crop, at more than one Station, have shown that potash applied alone to the crop, has, on a typical wheat soil, hardly any appreciable effect. At the Virginia Station it was found that nitrogen gave some increase of yield, but not enough to pay the cost of the application. That potash and nitrogen applied together gave no better results than when apphed separately. Their combination was in- ferior to the results obtained from a separate application of phosphoric acid. Phosphoric acid doubled (or more than doubled) the yield of straw and grain every year, and gave profitable returns. In combination with either potash or nitrogen it was unmistakably effective. It gave better results in combination with nitrogen than with potash. These experiments were made on a fertile limestone-valley soil. The Delaware Station found that the combination of phosphoric acid and potash was most effective on their soil. Many years ago the farmers in the upper counties of Maryland and Delaware, on the Peninsula, found that on their soil they got as good returns in the wheat crop, from the simple application of acid phosphate, as from the use of a complete fertilizer, when they used a short three year rotation. For many years, in the finest wheat growing section of Maryland and Delaware, hardly any fertilizer except acid phosphate, has been used by the best wheat farmers. The Delaware Station has tried to show them that a small addition of potash would be an advantage on their soil. But few have been induced to change their practice. An old and intelligent farmer of Queen Anne county, Maryland, recently wrote to me that he had used no other fertilizer than simple acid phosphate, for twenty or more years, and that with his rota- (120) WHERE WINTER WHEAT IS THE MoNEy Crop—121 tion the wheat crop had steadily improved, and he said that now his last crop was 40 bushels per acre. I have seen, the present Summer, lands in Mary- land on which 50 bushels of wheat per acre were grown the present season, where no nitrogen has been bought for many years. _ The wheat farmers of Maryland have learned that they can get all the nitrogen they need without buying it in the form of a commercial fertilizer. And this is a lesson for wheat farmers in all parts of the country where winter wheat is grown. The important thing to the wheat grower is, while getting a fair growth of straw to avoid an excessive growth, but at the same time a full crop of grain. An excess of nitrogen tends to an excessive straw growth and a consequent weakness and liability to lodge. While all the studies of the manurial requirements of the wheat crop show that the greatest yield is where there is applied a complete fertilizer, with a due proportion of phosphoric acid and nitrogen and potash, it by no means follows that it is necessary to buy all of these in a fertilizer. We should also bear in mind the fact, that on a soil where legumes have not been regularly grown in a rotation, some years must elapse before the nitrogen col- lecting crop will gather more than is needed by the immediately succeeding crop, unless further addition of nitrifying organic matter is, in the mean time, added to the soil. Hence a short rotation again comes in as the best under most conditions. ROTATIONS FOR THE WINTER WHEAT CROP. For many years, and long before the use of commercial fertilizers became general, the best farmers of the Middle Atlantic States, whose money crop is wheat with stock feeding, practiced a rotation in which the land was seeded to clover and grass with the wheat, mowed for several years and then pastured, and finally the sod plowed for corn, which was followed by oats the following Spring and the oats stubble fallowed and prepared for wheat again. Keeping a large number of cattle and raising a goodly quantity of manure, these farmers managed to keep their lands to a fair state of productiveness, with a long rotation, on farms divided up into very small fiefds with a vast amount of needless fencing. ‘This practice has since gradually given way to a four year rotation, with clover standing but one year, and the land again returned to corn. The fault of this rotation is that the important money crop, the wheat, comes on the oats stubble, and nearly two years after the clover has been plowed under, hence does not get the best use of the clover. The Delaware Station proposes to remedy this by introducing there the early varieties of the Southern cow pea, after the oats are cut, as a preparatory 122—-CroP GROWING AND Crop FEEDING crop for the wheat. In sections hke Delaware, where winter oats can be suc- cessfully grown, this plan will probably be a success; as the winter oats should there come off the first of July or earlier, and give plenty of time to make a crop of peas, from the varieties, like the Warren Extra Early, which will make a matured crop in 60 days from the sowing. ‘The rotation would then be, wheat, with a good application of acid phosphate and seeded to clover. Clover mown twice, or once and pastured. Home-made manure hauled out on the clover sod during the winter and all plowed under in the spring for corn. Oats sown in September and followed by peas cut for hay, and stubble prepared for wheat again, with acid phosphate. This will give two nitrogenous forage crops every year and largely increase the feeding capacity of the farm. In other sections, where the oats crop is of less importance, great success has attended the use of a three year rotation of corn, wheat and clover, the only fertilizer used being acid phosphate on the wheat, and an occasional dressing of lime on the sod for corn. It may be argued that the corn stubble is not the most favorable place for the wheat, and under former conditions it was not. But where the farm is stocked to its full capacity for feeding cattle, and a large amount of manure is made and apphed broadcast to the corn crop, the corn stubble, with the help of acid phosphate, is not an unde- sirable place for the wheat crop; as is evidenced by the regular increase in the wheat crop where this rotation has been practiced. As in the three year rota- tion with cotton, this can be best carried out with the aid of a permanent pasture, and thus save all interior fences on the cultivated land. In all the rolling uplands of the Upper South, in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, there are elevated lands that the owners have persisted in growing cotton upon which are naturally better adapted to wheat. Some years ago, when traveling through the upper section of South Carolina on the Southern Railway, a gentleman, evidently a farmer, boarded the train, and as I am always interested in talking with the farmers I picked up an acquaintance with him and made some inquiries about the country through which we were traveling, between Spartanburg and Atlanta. I found that my friend was’an intelligent farmer, who had come there from a wheat grow- ing section in the North and had been farming for a number of years in this Piedmont section. He said that having been a wheat grower all his life, he determined to continue to grow wheat and clover, as he could not see why they should not thrive in that elevated and beautiful section. He said that the first year when he sowed wheat he was laughed at, and told that wheat would not make much of a crop there. He made, the first year, only 6 bushels of wheat per acre, but as his land was in a badly run down condition 7 WHERE WINTER WHEAT IS THE MONEY Crop—123 he was not surprised at this and simply kept on following a rotation which he had planned for the improvement of the land. Last season he said that his wheat crop, on the same field that once made 6 bushels per acre, was 35 bushels per acre, and that he was satisfied that wheat could be as successfully grown on the Southern uplands as anywhere. But this farmer had been wise enough to adapt his farming to the conditions of his environment. He had found that in the sunny South red clover is a very uncertain crop, and that its place could be well taken by the Southern pea. Accordingly he had adopted a rotation in which the pea took the place of clover, and enabled him to make more crops in a short rotation than he could with clover, which remained on the land a whole year. His rotation was corn, with peas planted among it and all the manure of the farm applied to it. Corn cut off at the ground, cured in shocks and the stover all saved for feed. Land well disced, the peas chopped up, and winter oats sown. Next spring the oats are har- vested and the land at once prepared for peas, with a dressing of acid phos- phate and potash. Peas are mown for hay and the land again disced only, and the surface made fine and sown to wheat. After the wheat is harvested the land is plowed and peas sown again and another crop of hay made. Rye is then sown as a winter cover, and during the winter the manure is gotten out, spread on the rye and all turned under in March for the corn crop; and the rotation begins again. At first he found that it was better, in the poverty stricken state of his soil, to plow under all the meagre growth of peas for the wheat and corn, but later on, as the growth became heavier, he found that this would not only be a waste of feed, but that the land could not be so well prepared for the wheat crop. He then got to feeding more cattle and utiliz- ing the forage he was growing so largely, and found that the feeding was a profitable part of his farming; and that his land was constantly improving while the farms around him, which were being worked in the old way, in cotton alone, were washing and wasting. There is no reason, however, that a similar rotation should not be fully as good for those upland farmers who wish to adhere to the cotton crop. In their case the rotation could be made, corn with all the home-made manure, followed by wheat, with commercial fertilizer without nitrogen, peas after the wheat is cut, and these made into hay, and rye sown on the stubble as a winter cover, and plowed under in early March for cotton. Commercial fertilizers used on the cotton, and crimson clover sown among the cotton in September. Then, during the winter, get out all the farm manure on the clover, and in March plow all under for corn and begin the rotation over again. In this rotation, the wheat, coming directly after the corn, to which the manure and clover was applied, will have the best chance, will need no fertilizer except acid phosphate; the cotton fol- 124—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING lowing the peas and with rye plowed under, will need only acid phosphate and potash, with perhaps a small percentage of nitrate of soda, to give it an early start. Then, if the peas and corn and corn stover are utilized in the feeding of stock, there should, in a few years, be manure enough raised to cover the entire corn tend. In this connection, though not directly in regard to wheat growing, yet in this same line of soil development through the feeding of the abundant forage that every Southern farm will produce, I would call attention to the results obtained at the Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station, connected with the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. The Tennessee Station has made a series of experiments in the feeding of cattle, primarily to determine whether the native stock of the country could be fed at a profit for beef, and in the second place to determine whether a home grown ration could not be made to profitably replace feed that they would have to buy. They used, in the experiment, two groups of four steers each. The experiment began on the first day of January, 1900, and continued uninterruptedly for 98 days. The first group were fed all the shredded corn stover they would eat and also 6 pounds of cow pea hay and 3 pounds of corn meal. The second group were also fed corn stover ad libitum, and for part of the time had 6 to 16 pounds of cotton seed bran and 4 to 7 pounds of cotton seed meal, and then were changed to 6 pounds of the cotton seed bran, 3 pounds of cotton seed meal and 4 pounds of corn meal. The cotton seed bran is the finely ground cotton seed hulls, which is being largely advertised in the South for cattle roughage. But the experiment showed that it has little food value, is heavy and indi- gestible, and does not answer for roughage as well as the crude hulls them- selves; and these, in our opinion, are little better than pine shavings. These rations were gradually increased, until, at the close, the first group received 10 pounds of cow pea hay and 11 pounds of corn meal, and the second group had 7 pounds corn meal and 5 pounds of cotton seed meal. Without enter- ing here into the details of the experiment we give the conclusions arrived at: 1. Tennessee is admirably adapted to the production of stockers, which can be successfully fed on the products of the rich valley farms. 2. Stock husbandry has valuable effect on soil fertility, as 90 per cent., and over, of the fertilizing ingredients in the foods consumed, are available for the restoration of soil fertility . 3. Cotton seed bran is too expensive for roughage and has an unfavorable effect on digestion, producing impaction of the rumen. Tennessee farmers cannot afford to use it in this form, and all the roughage needed in cattle feeding can be produced more cheaply on the farm than anywhere else. 4. Cow pea vine hay made an admirable substitute for cotton seed meal. As it is not so rich in protein, however, it should be fed at the rate of two to WHere WINTER WHEAT IS THE MonEy Crop—125 three pounds of the former to one of the latter. 5. It is seen from these tests that a home grown ration of shredded stover, cow pea vine hay and corn meal, can be fed with success to a fair type of native cattle. This means much to the farmers of Tennessee. Tennessee is admirably adapted to the production of the cow pea. On good land two tons of this plant can be produced per acre, yielding 431.6 pounds of protein, costing 4.63 per pound. Besides this it stores up in the soil nitrogen which it gathers from the air. In view of its value in feeding it should be cultivated much more extensively for this purpose. 7%. Cotton seed meal gave the better results when combined with corn meal, in proportion of one pound of the former to one and a quarter pounds of the latter, than when fed alone. 8. This experiment indicates that native steers can be successfully fed at home at a fair profit. It further indicates that all the corn stover now wasting in the fields should be shredded and fed. 9. The tables bring out the importance of individuality in the animal, and show the necessity of improving our feeding stocks by crossing with pure bred sires. 10. The results of this experiment favor the use of a ration of corn stover, cow pea vine hay and corn meal, in preference to one of shredded corn stover, cotton seed bran and cotton seed meal. 11. Con- formation and uniformity of type are important in cattle feeding, as they materially affect the selling price. 12. The average gain in live weight in group one was 1.99 and in group two, 1.75 pounds per day. The best individual gain was. 2.50 pounds, and the poorest, 1.53 pounds. 13. The average cost for food for group one was $9.25; for group two, $12.63, a dif- ference of $3.38 in favor of home produced rations. 14. The net cost of a pound of gain with group one was 2.65 cents; with group two, 4.21 cents. This was chiefly due to the difference in market prices of the foods fed. 15. Group one consumed an average of 7.70 pounds of dry matter; group two, 9.32 pounds; group one consumed an average of 5.2% pounds of digestible matter and group two, 5.10 pounds of digestible matter for a pound of gain. 16. The average amount of water consumed by group one per day was 42.90 pounds, and by group two, 43.51 pounds. The highest amount consumed by any one individual was 50.36 pounds, and the lowest, 39.09 pounds. 1%. The average live weight of group one was 956 pounds, and of group two, 950.2 pounds. The average dressed weight of group one was 527.6 pounds, and of group two, 529.5 pounds. The percentage of valu- able meat in group one was 55.75, and in group two, 55.52. The highest percentage of valuable meat with a single individual was 59.13 and the lowest 53.56. This is considerably below the standard for good cattle, but a single cross would materially improve these results. 18. The average net increase by feeding was $8.37 with group one, and $7.71 with group two. 19. The 126—Crorp GROWING AND Crop FEEDING average cost of a pound of gain was 4.82 cents with group one, and 7.12 cents with group two. 20. The average net gain, allowing for care at 3 cents a day, was $6.15 with group one and $3.62 with group two. The average net gain, less care, was $8.98 with group one and $5.93 with group two. We have given these results here in full for*the purpose of showing that in other sections of the South, where the cow pea flourishes far better than in the upland country of East Tennessee where these experiments were made, farmers can produce an abundance of the finest of cattle food, and can, in the feeding of beef cattle, make a larger profit than most of them are now making with cotton; and can, at the same time, be growing a crop that will improve their soil for the production of cotton and other crops. While we appreciate the great value of commercial fertilizers as fully as anyone, we cannot too often repeat that the feeding of stock lies at the beginning of all rational farm improvement, either in the North or the South; and the sooner the Southern farmer learns the wonderful advantage he has in the cow pea the sooner will permanent prosperity dawn upon him. If the feeding of native cattle on the foods so easily produced in all parts of the cotton belt can be made profitable in Tennessee, it can be made even more profitable in the soils of the Atlantic border where the cow pea flourishes far better than in Kast Tennessee. To one who has studied these things through long years of farm experience it is amazing to note how slow the farmers are, not only in the South, but throughout the wheat growing section of the Middle States, to seize upon the means that will enable them to prosper as they have never done. The experiments at the Tennessee Station simply corroborate those made at the Delaware Station in feeding cow pea hay to milch cows as a substitute for the bran the dairymen are continually buying. It was shown there with cows, as it was with the beeves at the Tennessee Station, that the protein needed in a ration can be more cheaply supplied by the cow pea than by purchased food; for it was shown in Delaware that cows that had been for a time fed on a ration in which the protein was furnished by the bran, did not shrink in milk when taken from that to one in which cow pea hay furnished the protein, but that when they were put back from the pea vine hay to the bran again, there was a shrinkage in the milk yield. ‘The significance of these results to the wheat grower in the Southern and Middle States is plain. It shows that while improving their soil through the grow- ing of the pea, they can at the same time produce a food that will take the place of costly purchased food, and will enable them to turn out the finished products at a far less cost and consequently at a greater profit. The cotton grower may imagine that he can do without stock, but the wheat grower who does not keep and feed cattle is even more shortsighted than the cotton man. WHERE WINTER WHEAT IS THE MONEY CRoP—127 FERTILIZERS FOR WHEAT. It will not do to assume that because in certain sections the farmers have succeeded in greatly increasing their wheat crops through the use of phosphatic fertilizers only, that the same practice will insure success on all wheat soils. Asa rule, most of our best wheat soils of the winter wheat sec- tion of the Atlantic slope, are not deficient in potash to the extent that they are in phosphoric acid. It is these two which most concern us, for, no matter what the soil, a proper rotation with legumes will give us all the nitrogen needed by the crop. But every farmer, no matter what his crop, should find out for himself what his land especially needs. He must be an experimenter if he hopes to farm successfully and economically. How these experiments should be made will form the subject of a special chapter. Lime, of course, is useful in wheat farming, but we do not class lime and plaster as fertilizers, but as reagents, for bringing about chemical changes in the soil. The place for lime in the three year rotation for wheat is on the clover that is to go in corn the next season, and the time to put it there is in the early spring of the season in which the clover is to be cut. Once in six years is often enough to use lime unless the application is very light. But we would use phosphoric acid, or phosphoric acid and potash, on the wheat, not only for the benefit of the wheat but for insuring a better stand and growth of the clover. The practice of using the farm manure as a top dressing for the wheat in winter, may be a good practice in some cold sections as a pre- ventive of winter killing; but, on strong land, it tends too much towards the getting of a rank growth of straw at the expense of grain, and increases the danger of lodging. The place for all the farm manure is on the sod that is to be plowed for corn in the spring. During the summer’s cultivation of the corn crop it gets mingled with the soil, and much remains untouched below, to feed the wheat that follows the corn. In the more northern section of the winter wheat belt it is doubtless necessary to put the wheat in earlier than corn land will allow, and there a longer rotation is needed. WHAT A CROP OF WHEAT REMOVES FROM THE SOIL. An average good crop of wheat of 20 bushels per acre, will remove from the soil in the grain alone—and this is all we need be concerned about since the straw will go back to the land—28.32 pounds of nitrogen, 10.68 pounds of phosphoric acid and 7.32 pounds of potash. It will be seen, then, that the relative importance of these food constituents is pretty much as they stand. But, so far as the nitrogen is concerned, we will have left over in the 128—Crop GROWING AND CROP FEEDING organic matter of the clover and manure applied to the corn crop in a three year rotation, all the nitrogen the wheat will need; and we need but con- sider the needs of the crop as regards the phosphoric acid and potash, and to ascertain what the needs of the soil are as regards these. The maturing of the seed of the plant draws more heavily on the phosphoric acid in the soil than it does on the potash, and hence the relative greater importance of the phosphoric acid in the fertilizer. Then, too, we find that in order to get best results from an application of potash it is essential that it be accom- panied by a due proportion of phosphoric acid, since neither potash nor phosphoric acid will have as good effect applied alone as in combination. With nearly all the cereal grains it will be found that phosphoric acid is the controlling factor in any mixture. But in clover the proportion of potash is considerably larger than that of phosphoric acid. Then in devising a fer- tilizer for the wheat crop on which we propose to sow clover it will be wise to regard the needs of the clover for potash, and supply it; for we may rest assured that the soil will hold on to it for the clover, even if the wheat does not need it. <A crop of two tons of clover hay per acre will require for the hay alone 82.82 pounds of nitrogen, 15.2 pounds of phosphoric acid and 88 pounds of potash. The nitrogen it will get largely from the air, but the potash must be in the soil. In this we take no account of what is in the roots and stubble, as that goes into the soil, but the amount of potash in the hay is seen to be large, and must be supplied to wnake the best crop. THOROUGH PREPARATION OF THE SOIL AS IMPORTANT AS FERTILIZERS FOR WHEAT. A hard lump of phosphatic rock may lie in the soil for generations and produce little effect on the vegetation. But let that rock be pulverized to an impalpable powder, and scattered through the soil, and the effect will soon be apparent. In a similar manner, a hard lump of soil may have in it a store of plant food, but the roots of the plants cannot get at it; and the lumpy character of such soil renders it liable to dry out rapidly and thus prevent the proper solution of the plant food that may be in the soil, either naturally or applied in the fertilizer. While deep plowing is as essential to wheat growing as to that of any other crop, the fine, searching roots of the plant require that the soil should be in a completely comminuted state, and well settled, so that the plant food ean be released; and capillary attraction set up in the soil to keep up the regular supply of moisture from below. If wheat is sown in a dry soil dur- WHERE WINTER WHEAT IS THE MONEY Crop—129 ing dry weather, and the soil particles are but slightly broken up and the clods lie loosely, there is every chance, in our dry autumn weather, that the wheat will fail to germinate, while if the soil is plowed early, and thoroughly fined and settled by repeated harrowings and rollings, the wheat may be sown in a very dry time with every chance in its favor. It takes little obser- vation, when passing through the country after wheat seeding, to see the difference in the stand on well prepared fields and on hastily plowed and seeded ones. Ona good wheat soil we had rather take the chances for a good crop on soil thoroughly prepared and with no fertilizer, than on a hastily prepared and late plowed field with the best of fertilization. | We cannot too often repeat, that the homogenous condition of the soil, made by thor- ough preparation, fining and packing, is the great essential to a good crop of grain. GREEN MANURING FOR WHEAT. For many years writers in the agricultural papers have recommended the plowing under of clover or peas as a preparation for the wheat crop. In the heavier glacier clays of the North this may probably be done without harm, but in the South, especially on a light soil, such a practice is often more productive of damage than good, from the evolution of organic acids in the hot soil and warm season. A heavy vegetable growth can be safely plowed under in the early spring when the soil is to be stirred for a hoed crop, but in the warm season the plowing under of any green mass is apt to produce disastrous results. And even where there may not be as much danger from the souring of the soil as there certainly is south of the Potomac, the burying of a large amount of organic matter in the soil, just before wheat seeding, will prevent the proper firming and uniform condition essen- tial to success with the wheat crop. One of the worst failures I ever saw was from the burying of a great growth of cow peas in September. The mass was so heavy that it could not be well buried, and the soil did not get the preparation it needed. The wheat grew off well, and there was a fine stand of grass, which was the thing mainly wanted. In the spring the growth of wheat was enormous from the rapid nitrification of the organic matter in the soil, but as soon as headed it all fell flat, and the result was a very poor crop of wheat and the grass was smothered out, so that the whole thing had to be done over. This was in Maryland up near the Pennsylvania line. Here in the South such a plowing under would probably have resulted in such a souring that nothing would have grown at all till the land was heavily limed to restore its sweetness. 130—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING I once addressed a Farmers’ Institute in North Carolina, and was trying to show the farmers the advantage of growing the cow pea. I soon found that my audience hardly agreed with me. But when I showed them the danger of plowing under the peas green, I saw that I was getting more atten- tion. When I closed, a farmer rose in the audience and said: “We thought that you were going to advise the plowing under of the peas. Some years ago Prof. — came down here and urged us to grow peas as a green manure crop. Some of us tried it and soured our land so that for a year or two it would hardly produce anything, and since that we have been afraid of peas.” From that day’s talk, however, the farmers of that section realized the true value of the cow pea, and now they are grown on every vacant spot during the summer. One of the leading farmers in the upper Piedmont section of North Carolina, in a good wheat growing section, assured me that he had had disastrous results from the plowing under of a heavy growth of rag weed on a wheat stubble, in preparing the land for wheat again. The instances are so numerous in the South of the evil results of plowing under green vegeta- tion in hot weather, there cannot be any doubt of the danger of such a practice. But even where the plowing under may not result as badly as it does in the South, the plowing under of a great mass of vegetation is a bad prepara- tion for the wheat crop, as it prevents the proper firming of the soil so essen- tial to the success of the crop. But the main reason why green manuring, as it is called, is a bad practice, is that it is wasteful, and not in accordance with true business principles. The great reason for the growing of a crop of clover or peas is the acquisition of the nitrogen of the air and the storing of it in the soil. Now if the clover or peas are plowed under at midsummer, they have not done anywhere near what they would do for us in the way of getting nitrogen, for this is mainly done during the later period of growth approaching the maturity of the plant. If the crop is allowed to fully mature, there will be about as much left in the roots as the whole crop con- tained at an earlier period of its growth. Then, too, the feeding value of the pea crop is fully $20 per acre, and it must be an extra valuable crop that will warrant the use of food of that value as a manure direct, especially when by feeding it and carefully saving the manure, we can recover a large part of the manurial value in the droppings of the animals. Hence, we insist that green manuring, either North or South, does not mean the burying of the Jegumes as a whole; but the fertilization of the crop as food for cattle and the careful saving of the manure. Grow legumes as a matter of course, and allow them to do all the nitrogen gathering they are capable of doing, but do not cut short the work they are doing because of the theories of men who have WHERE WINTER WHEAT IS THE MONEY Crop—131 only a theoretical idea of the subject. Legume growing is the most im- portant thing in connection with the improvement of the soil, but the term “oreen manuring”’ is misleading to the inexperienced, and is one which should never be used. WHEAT AFTER A HOED CROP. Farmers in many sections have gotten a prejudice against “corn ground wheat,” because of the old common practice. of plowing in the wheat on the corn land. Where the land has been properly plowed and prepared for the corn or tobacco crop, and has been rapidly and well cultivated in a shallow manner, it has, by the time wheat should be sown, gotten into a fine condi- tion for the best success with wheat; and if the corn is taken off the ground and the wheat drilled directly on the well cultivated soil, the crop is apt to be a good one. Putting in wheat after a hoed crop has the advantage that the legume crop and the home-made manure can be used for the corn crop, and will, by seeding time, have gotten well mixed and assimilated to the soil, and there will not be an excess of the nitrifying organic matter, but plenty for the wheat, and only phosphatic and potassic fertilizers will be needed. A three year rotation, in which the wheat comes after a hoed crop, will, in the long run, be the best for the improvement of the soil and the development of the wheat crop. A summer fallow may at once give a better crop of wheat, but it will be made at the expense of the best interests of the soil; far better have for a while a smaller wheat crop and be building up the soil. Pasturing a crop of clover till the bare ground shows all over the field, and then at midsummer turning the soil up to the sun and preparing it for wheat, may give you a wheat crop, but the land will be losing humus and running together hard, the corn crop will be dwindling, and, finally, the wheat crop will be grown mainly by the application of a complete and costly fertilizer. Far better stick to the short rotation, have a permanent pasture and never graze the cultivated fields. We saw the evil results the present summer in the fine wheat lands of Talbot Co., Maryland, of the practice of close grazing. They get fine wheat crops, but the land runs together and needs humus badly for the best results with the other crops. In travelling over the northern sec- tion of Indiana late in the fall a few years ago, I was struck with the vivid green of the strip between the railroad fences and the bare and brown fields on either side of the track. The farmers were evidently running too long a rotation and robbing their soil of humus by close grazing. A short rotation would give far more forage for cattle and would save the great waste of 132—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING fertility that is going on there. Ere long those lands will reach the point where wheat will grow only by liberal fertilization, the necessity for which could be avoided by a timely method of systematic farming. The old notion that stock and dairy farming require a long rotation, and the keeping of the land in grass till the grass runs out, hence, dividing up the farm into a multitude of small fields to be pastured in their turn, is fast giving way to a more rational system in which the great American forage crop, Indian corn, plays an important part; and the silo becomes the means for increasing. the manure deposit, and the fertility of the soil. Feeding the whole corn crop, stalks and all, in the most complete manner, and using the legume crop to balance it, enables the dairy farmer to become a wheat grower as well, and to greatly increase the productive capacity of his soil for his money crops of grain and the dairy. Growing wheat in a three year rotation, with legumes and Indian corn, gives the dairyman two strings to his bow while increasing the strength of both. CHAPTER XIV. FERTILIZERS FOR THE PERMANENT PASTURE. Most of the so-called permanent pastures are rather poor excuses for pasturage. In many cases the land selected, and properly so, is a piece too steep or rocky for cultivation, and it is expected to produce food for cattle year after year, with no help whatever but the droppings. Big weeds are allowed to sap its fertility and run out the grass, and no return is made to the land for the food taken away. The idea of giving fertilizers to the pasture does not seem to be thought of; and yet there is no part of the farm that will so well repay feeding. In some sections, where grazing on the hill lands has become a feature of the agriculture of lands practically worthless otherwise, it has been found that an annual top dressing of commercial fertilizers has brought up the hill land to a capacity for feeding stock for- merly undreamed of. To keep up the productivity of a pasture it must, in the first place, be kept clean of anything but grass. Clipping of the weeds and regular scat- tering of the droppings will do much towards the keeping of the grass good. But we must remember that in the milk and in the bones of growing animals there is going on a constant waste of the phosphates, and these must he replaced. Then, too, nitrogen is needed for the best success with grass, and as we are here making no rotation with legumes for gathering it, we must add some in our fertilizer. For the permanent pasture we have never found anything so good as finely ground raw bone meal. This has about 4 per cent. of nitrogen, and the most of the remainder is a bone phosphate of lime in which the phosphoric acid becomes available by degrees, and is better adapted to the keeping up of a uniform herbage than a more readily available form. Once in six or eight years a moderate dressing of lime will be a great help, especially if the grass is mainly that known as Kentucky Blue grass, which, (183) 134—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING being a limestone loving grass, is greatly improved on other soils by an occasional dressing of lime. I have seen steep hills which have been pas- tured annually for a generation and thus top dressed, which to-day feed more cattle than they did 40 years ago, though they have not been plowed in all that time. GRASSES FOR PERMANENT PASTURE. ‘ While not directly connected with the subject of fertilization, there is so much interest in various parts of the country in the matter of permanent grass pastures, a few words in regard to the best grasses will not be amiss. All along the Atlantic border, from Maryland southward, the Bermuda grass, or Cynodon Dactylon, has established itself; and has, in many places near the northern limit of its growth, become a source of much annoyance to the grower of wheat and other small grain, through its persistent and rapid growth often choking out the sown grain. The farmers of this section know this under the name of wire grass, and in Northern Maryland it meets and mingles with the Northern quack (or couch) grass, and both go under the common name of “wire grass.” In that section, and in the upper country of the South, Bermuda grass is only a nuisance. But coming South along the coast plain, on the sandy lands devoted to cotton culture, it attains an increased importance and becomes the most valuable of all grasses for permanent pasture. It is true that it is a hot weather grass only and makes no show in winter; but if mixed with Texas blue grass (Poa Arachnifera), which is purely a winter growing grass, there is nothing to be desired so far as a permanent pasture is concerned, and the two together will make, on the most sandy lands of the cotton belt, a sod equal to that of the Blue grass of Kentucky. But in all the upper red clay lands of the South we do not advise the use of the Bermuda, for in these lands the orchard grass and mountain blue grass (Poa Compressa) will be found better adapted; and the white clover, and in shaded places, Kentucky blue grass, will come in naturally if the fertility of the soil is maintained by an annual dressing of bone meal. In the sandy soils of the coast region the Bermuda and Texas blue grass have no rivals, and here the fertilizer should be varied, and a good percentage of potash added to the dressing. The Bermuda, left alone, makes the densest of sod, since its running stems spread in every direction, burying each other by growth above till the stems below die and decay and gradually accumu- late a mass of decayed organic matter, and the sod gets “hide bound.” To restore it, put in a strong team and plow the sod so as to merely turn it FERTILIZERS FOR THE PERMANENT PASTURE—135 over about four or five inches deep, and harrow and roll. Then apply a coat of freshly water slaked lime at rate of 20 bushels per acre. Do this in the spring about corn planting time, and you will at once have a fresh and strong growth as the soil warms up, and when well under way apply the bone and potash dressing at rate of 200 pounds of bone to 50 pounds of muriate of potash. Plowed and renewed in this way once in eight or ten years, there is nothing that can surpass the Bermuda and Texas blue grass, on the lands to which they are suited and in the climate where they belong. In the upland red clay soils of the Piedmont section of the South, the best grasses we have ever tried for a permanent pasture are orchard grass, red top, Kentucky blue grass and white clover. Of the three grasses we would sow 10 pounds each per acre, and then scatter about 4 pounds per acre of the white clover. The orchard grass and red top will at once make their appearance, and while the red top will not be a permanent grass on the uplands, it will furnish the first green and will help to protect the coming of the blue grass among the tussocks of the orchard grass, and if the land is dressed and limed as heretofore advised, the blue grass will finally become the main sod of the field. In the southern part of the upland region of the South I would leave out the Kentucky blue grass and substitute the moun- tain blue grass (Poa Compressa). This grass is almost as persistent as the Bermuda, and forms a dense sod, and should never be allowed to encroach cn the cultivated fields, since on heavy and moist land it is as hard to get rid of as the Bermuda. But it is far better adapted to Southern conditions than the Poa Pratense, or Kentucky blue grass. It seems probable from experiments that have been made that the Smooth Brome grass (Bromus Inermis) will be a valuable pasture grass on the lighter lands of the South, and it is well worth experimenting with till its true value is determined. From the mountains of Virginia, all over the Southern uplands, there are now thousands of acres of worn and wasted land, washed into gullies and in some places irredeemable, which could be put to use as pasture if properly treated. These lands now, where there are no deep gulleys, are generally covered by the broomsedge that nature puts on every wasted spot in the South. The broomsedge itself is not a bad pasture in the early spring but it soon gets tough and worthless; and if these hills are to be utilized as pasture we must get something better than broomsedge on them. An experiment I made years ago in the mountains of Virginia showed that this can be done easily. I had a rough and rocky mountain side that had never been plowed, and that was really too rocky to attempt to plow. But it was near the barn and would make a convenient place to turn the cows at night 136—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING rather than drive them back to a distant pasture or keep them in the yards all night, which last was not to be thought of. About that time I noticed that all along the railroad coming from the South, the Lespedeza, or Japan clover, was creeping in. It had not reached us, but I found that it had reached the top of the gap through which we passed the Ragged Mountains to the Southern Railway. Seeing it growing on waste places by the hard roadside and among the rocks, I concluded that a plant that could thus spread itself was a good thing for my waste land. I sent to Louisiana, where there were parties saving the seed, and bought some. This was sown in the early spring, all among the broomsedge on the rocky hillside. Only this and nothing more. The land was fenced and the cows went there at night only after being pastured, and fed in the stable at milking time. By the next winter there was no more broomsedge on that hillside. The Japan clover had complete possession and I had a pasture for the summer worth far more. And not only this, but with the droppings of the cows which were scattered over the land, and the cows really ate very little there during the night, the white clover made its appearance, and the mountain blue grass (Poa Com- pressa) came in, and by the next year I had a pasture without broomsedge and composed of far better plants. Not being too closely pastured the herb- age increased and today that hillside is as good a permanent pasture as one will find anywhere in a similar situation. It could have been improved by an annual topdressing of raw bone, and I know of no dressing for the perma- nent pasture that so completely fills the bill as raw bone meal. The slow- ness with which its phosphoric acid becomes available is an advantage in such a situation, and the nitrogen to be found in a good sample will encourage at once the growth of the herbage. On one occasion, on a visit to the Mis- sissippi Agricultural College, I was shown a field distant from the barn, where there were fifty fat beeves. The land was the thin, worn-out, red-clay hill land to be seen all over the South, and there was absolutely no growth on it except the Japan clover an inch or two high. The cattle were in fine order, and I was told that they were not fed anything besides the Japan clover they were grazing upon. Evidently here was the plant to cover the waste lands of the South. Not a plant that can be profitably taken into a rotation on cultivated land, but a plant to make a pasture where none was before, and which would reproduce itself year after year and grow better while doing it. While not to be advised on lands that can be plowed and prepared for grasses it is evident that for lands where nothing else can grow, the Japan clover will prove a valuable pasture plant. If the hills are then pastured with sheep there will gradually be an incoming of better herbage, till these washed and gullied hills become clothed with grass and flocks. CHAPTER XV. FERTILIZERS WHERE HAY IS THE MONEY CROP. There are many who will hold up their hands with horror at the idea of selling hay off the farm. Of course there are few who are so located that they can make hay the most profitable money crop, but where a man is so located that he can make more money in selling hay than in feeding it on the farm, there is no good reason why he should not sell hay as well as any other crop he grows. A crop of timothy removes in each ton 25.2 pounds of nitro- gen, 10.6 pounds of phosphoric acid and 18 pounds of potash. A crop of wheat of 20 bushels per acre will remove 28.32 pounds of nitrogen, 10.68 pounds of phosphoric acid and 7.32 pounds of potash, in the grain alone; which is the only part usually sold from the farm. The manurial constitu- ents of a ton of timothy can be replaced in the form of commercial fertilizer for a little over $5. Then if the farmer cannot realize more from the feed- ing of the hay than the market value of hay on the farm, he had better sell the hay and buy the fertilizers, especially as we have shown that in a proper system of rotation he will not need to buy the nitrogen, which is more than half the manurial value of the timothy. But, says one, the manure is a profit, even if the feeding does not return more than the market value of the hay on the farm. It is true that a careful saving of the manure may recover a large part of the manurial value of the hay, but when the labor of caring for the stock is taken into the account, and the great labor of hand- ling the manure over that required for the commercial fertilizers, it will be seen that this apparent profit is really made at a loss. Of course, as we have said before, we consider that the feeding of stock and the making and saving of the manure lies at the very foundation of successful farming in most places; still, we believe in farming for profit, and we could never see the reason for a farmer making a sort of fetich of a manure pile, and spending more feed and labor on its accumulation than the accumulation is worth. We believe in applying common business-like sense to all the operations of the farm, and in localities where it pays better to sell the timothy than to feed it, I would by all means sell the hay, and depend on fertilizers and legumes to keep up the fertility of the soil. (137) 138—Crorp GROWING AND Crop FEEDING FARMING FOR HAY. But farming for hay does not mean running the land in meadow till it will hardly produce any hay worthy the name. A moderately short rota- tion is as good for the hay crop as for any other, and the growing of a legume crop is just as important as in a rotation for grain or cotton. Whatever the crop, the rotation should be planned so as to give that crop the best oppor- tunity in the rotation. Hence, in a rotation for grass, the grass should come in when the soil is best supplied with the nitrogen accumulated by the legume crop. In the Upper South, this legume crop should be the cow pea, and the best crop to seed down to clover and grass will be the winter oats crop, follow- ing corn among which the peas have been sown. The corn will have had all the manure accumulation possible on the farm, and the oats will get some benefit from this and more from the peas, and hence will need a good dressing of acid phosphate and potash as much for the clover and grass as for the oats. Seed to clover and grass with the oats in the fall, mow the oats stubble after the rag weeds start in the sum- mer, and the following spring give the clover and grass a dressing of freshly water-slaked lime at rate of 20 bushels per acre. Mow two seasons, and the second season in the early spring give a top dressing of nitrate of soda and acid phosphate, 50 pounds of the first and 200 of the last per acre. In the South, orchard grass and tall meadow oat grass should take the place of timothy, which does not thrive well here. After the first cutting of hay the second year plow the sod and sow in peas again. Cut these peas for hay to feed on the farm, and during the winter get all the manure out on the stubble for the corn crop the following year. Wheat may, of course, take the place of the winter oats where more profitable. This is only adapted to the upper country of the South and not to the cotton belt, where hay making from grass can hardly be made a profitable part of the farm rotation, and where the legumes will be of more value on the arable lands than meadow grasses. But in the North, and near the large cities, where hay from timothy grass is always in demand at fair prices, and where the farmer will haul his own hay to market, he can always haul home the manurial value of the hay either in the city manure, or fertilizers, at a considerable profit in the trans- action. ‘There, a four or five year rotation, with corn, wheat, clover and tim- othy will usually be the best. Of course he will keep some stock, but he will make the best use of the commercial fertilizers in the production of his hay. Even with the best of management it will be found at times that it will pay the hay farmer to buy some nitrogen, in the form of nitrate of soda, for a spring dressing, and it will usually be found that the most profitable use he FERTILIZERS WHERE HAy IS THE MoNEY Crop—139 can make of his manure accumulation will be on the sod that is to go into corn the following year, after mowing the spring crop. This will give a good second crop and will prepare the sod better for the corn. Getting a good price for hay, it will pay him to be liberal with the top dressings of com- mercial fertilizers, and, for a rank growth of grass, nitrogen in the imme- diately available form of nitrate of soda will usually be found the cheapest and best. Farming for hay, does not differ from farming for grain in the need of keeping up the productivity of the land through fertilizers and a good rotation, and under the conditions we have named, hay farming may be the most profitable method of farming that one can adopt; while under the conditions prevailing in most parts of the country, and on cheap lands, the rule to feed all coarse forage on the farm is a good one. We have simply endeavored to show that one may be so situated that hay will be the best money crop he can grow. Then, too, there are places where the straw on the farm commands a better price at the paper mills than hay sells for in most places. The straw has little manurial or feeding value, being mainly useful as an absorbent of the manure. Then, where a man can sell wheat straw for $6 per ton, as is done in some places, he can do better to sell it than to feed it, provided he returns the value in plant food to the soil. In that case the soil will be the gainer, as the wheat straw has no such fertilizing value. One of the greatest advantages the market gardeners on the South Atlantic coast have is the ease with which they can grow a large crop of hay the same season in which they cultivate the land in vegetables. Crab grass, which is classed as a pest in the North and elsewhere, develops here a value that is unsuspected elsewhere. On the moist and fertile lands where the early truck is produced for the Northern markets, if the land is simply put in good order after the early truck crops are removed, there comes in a wonderful volunteer crop of crab grass, which attains a height and luxuri- ance unknown elsewhere and often cuts two tons per acre of excellent hay. It is curious to notice, too, that not only the size of the crop is increased on these fertile lands, but the quality of the feed is also improved. Crab grass hay from a poor piece of land is hardly worth the saving. A friend in South Carolina once told me that he cut some crab grass from a thin piece of land, thinking that it should be saved, and a little later he cut a heavy crop from a truck patch and put it into the same barn. His horse thrived well on this, but later on he suddenly found his horse was falling off, though fed as usual, and he found that they had gotten down on the poor land hay and that it would hardly support life. But the true hay crop for the market gardens, as it is elsewhere in the South, is the cow pea. Sown after the truck crops 140—Crorp GrowINa AND Crop FEEDING are off it makes a wonderful growth on the rich soil, and has with it a great mixture of the crab grass that will not down, and the two together are more easily cured than the peas alone. If there is a man anywhere who can afford to sell hay, it is the Southern farmer with cow pea hay; for, in selling it, he leaves behind in the soil an accumulation of nitrogen for the succeeding crop, and where it commands the price it did last sumnier in South Carolina, of $18 per ton, it may pay better to sell than to feed, provided the money from the sale of the pea vine hay is returned to the soil in the form of com- mercial fertilizers, to enable it to grow a larger crop of hay. And the ad- vantage in the growing of cow pea hay for sale is that only the mineral forms of fertilizers are needed for it, and, not like grass, demanding large supplies of nitrogen. Hence it is possible in the South, in particular localities where hay commands these high prices, for a farmer to profitably grow a hay crop while improving his land in doing it, and thus get fertilizers for all his crops without cost. I say this is possible in some localities, but as a rule the South needs live stock worse than anything else, and only a few farmers will be situated near a market that will take their hay. Right here there could be a good profit made in this way, since, in the city of Raleigh, the people who keep cows are reduced to the necessity of buying either Northern timothy hay at $20 per ton, or to feed on cotton seed hulls at $5 per ton, and these are perhaps a little better than the pine shavings, but not. much; and for the milch cows the timothy hay is but little better and much more costly. It would be an easy matter here to grow two tons per acre of cow pea hay, and then an easy matter to sell it at at least $15 per ton, and if the $30 per acre were invested in good fertilizers for the farm, the sale crops could be greatly increased, by the fact that only the cheaper forms need be bought, as the sale crop of hay would leave the nitrogen as a profit. Where a man, then, is growing cotton near such a market for hay, and will not keep the stock he should, this opens a way for the improvement of his soil in an effective and economical way. The danger in all this selling of hay, however, lies in the temptation to keep, for other purposes, the money received and to let the land suffer. But a ton of cow pea hay would remove from the land only about two dollars’ worth of phosphoric acid and potash, and a sale of thirty dollars’ worth of hay, if invested in fertilizers, would return to the farm far more than was taken from it, to take no account of what remains in the roots left in the soil. While the selling of hay as a general practice is not the best thing most farmers can do, it is, nevertheless, true that farming is business and not a sentiment; and the farmer should grow and sell that which pays him best, taking the future of the soil into consideration. CHAPTER XVI. WHERE TOBACCO IS THE MONEY CROP. The traveler from the North, passing through the upper country of Vir- ‘ginia and North Carolina, and seeing everywhere the old, worn fields growing up in pines, is apt to jump to the conclusion that. tobacco is responsible for all this waste of fertility. Indirectly, of course, it is, but there is no more reason why tobacco should result in soil exhaustion from its growing than any other crop. But Northern farmers coming South rarely want to engage in the culture of either tobacco or cotton, as they charge the poverty of the Southern soils to these crops, and overlook the fact that bad farming and not the particular crop, is responsible for the waste lands and the old fields. Tobacco, more than than any other crop grown, is affected by the soil and climate in which it is grown, and tobacco growers in all parts of the country have learned what sorts of tobacco are best adapted to their soils and cli- mates. These differences in the varieties of tobacco grown have been the result of long experience and study, by cultivators, of the capacities of the various soils, and no one can afford to ignore the results, or to try to grow a variety on a certain soil that has not been found suited to it. The growers of the Zimmer Spanish, in Ohio, are too wise to try to grow the gold leaf tobacco which the North Carolina farmers use, and the North Carolina farm- ers are too wise to waste time on the White Burley of Kentucky or the black tobacco of the Virginia Peidmont country. The growers of Connecticut seed leaf would only lose money by endeavoring to grow plug manufacturing tobacco. In some sections of the tobacco growing parts of the country the growers insist that a systematic course of improvement of the soil would be disastrous to the quality of the tobacco they grow. This is largely the case in the bright, cigarette tobacco section of North Carolina, and the growers generally adhere to the practice of growing tobacco solely by the use of a (141) 142—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING moderate amount of fertilizers, insisting that a heavier fertilization made the tobacco coarser and later. Some years since a grower in one of the tobacco counties in North Carolina, wrote to me asking for a formula for a tobacco fertilizer, as he knew that I had been conducting a series of very ex- tensive experiments in the fertilization of this crop. I gave him the follow- ing formula, and advised him to use 700 pounds of the mixture per acre. Acid phosphate, 900 pounds; dried blood, 600 pounds; nitrate of soda, 100 pounds, and high grade sulphate of potash, 400 pounds. He took my advice, and when his crop was marketed sent me the report of the commission mer- chant who sold it, showing that his tobacco brought the highest average price of the season. Soon after this a man from the same county wrote to me for a formula, and I gave him the same. He wrote me that 700 pounds was an amount entirely too large and could not possibly make fine tobacco. I sent him the report of the man from his own county who wrote me that his suc- cess was so marked that he intended to increase the quantity of fertilizer. There is a widespread impression among the growers of bright tobacco that the use of peas or clover on their lands is detrimental to the quality of the tobacco. I believe this to be an error, and believe that the development of the fertility of any soil will enable the grower to grow a larger crop of the same tobacco for which his soil has been found suited. In one of the eastern counties of North Carolina, some years ago at a Farmers’ Institute, I advo- cated the use of the cow pea as a preparatory crop for tobacco. ‘The growers objected, and said that they had always understood that peas would spoil the quality of the leaf. Two years after that I was again in the same county holding an Institute, and stopped over night at the residence of the largest tobacco grower in the country. To my surprise I found that he not only had every vacant spot on the plantation covered with peas, but was planting a hill of peas between every hill of tobacco as soon as the priming off began ; tobacco there being cured by pulling the leaves as they ripen and not cutting the whole plant, so that by the time the crop was gathered he had a luxuriant field of peas to enrich the land. The land then in peas was to be planted in tobacco the next year, while corn took most of the tobacco land with its growth of peas, to be followed by winter oats, and these by peas again for tobacco. The appearance of his 150 acres of tobacco fully warranted the success of the practice. In the upper Piedmont country of Virginia, the farmers have been very successful in the growing of a black wrapper tobacco, by practicing a rotation on the land where they grew tobacco, different from that part of the farm where they grew most of their corn and other grain. On their tobacco land they practice a three year rotation of clover, tobacco and wheat, and use no fertilizer whatever; depending entirely WHERE TOBACCO IS THE MonEY Crop—143 on the clover for the tobacco crop, no clover being cut and no pasturing done on it. They have found that on their deep, red-clay soil this rotation has been a great success. One grower wrote that his wheat crop averaged 28 bushels per acre and his tobacco cleared him $145 per acre. How long such a rotation can be successfully run it is hard to say. Their soil in that section is very rich in potash, in the form of a silicate, which is gradually made available by the carbonic acid of the rainfall and the humus which they so lavishly grow in the clover; and as the tobacco crop makes a light draft on the phosphoric acid of the sod and the clover furnishes large amounts of nitro- gen, it may be a long time before they will need a change. But the wheat straw is being used to help the manure pile which is used on other-parts of the farm, and the land will probably ere long show an acidity that will make it “clover sick.” I have advised one of these growers that I am satisfied that his rotation can be improved by cutting the clover for hay, using a good dress- inng of acid phosphate on the wheat, and then using the manure (made from feeding the clover hay) on the sod before turning it for tobacco. A heavy ap- plication of acid phosphate to-the tobacco crop direct, might have a bad effect on making the leaf “bony” or thick-veined, but applied to the wheat and clover it would not have any bad effect on the tobacco. In Lower Virginia, where the heavy shipping tobacco is mainly grown, a similar rotation would be good. But there it would be advisable to use both acid phosphate and potash liberally on their lands, and in some sections to substitute peas for clover in the rotation. I would not make a separate rotation for the tobacco lands, from that practiced on the rest of the farm, but would put corn and tobacco in parts of the same field; alternating their position in each round of the rotation. Thus, corn and tobacco the first year, the corn to have the manurial accumulation of the farm, and the tobacco liberally supplied with the fertilizer mixed by the formula already given. Corn and tobacco both to be followed by winter oats or wheat, with 300 pounds per acre of acid phos- phate, and on the portion following corn to have 50 pounds per acre of muri- ate of potash added. The wheat or oats on the part where tobacco was heavily fertilized will need a much lighter dressing of the acid phosphate. Sow crimson clover on the stubble after harvest, and the following spring plow it under and seed to peas to be cut for hay. During the winter get out all the manure on the part intended for corn, where tobacco grew before, and repeat the rotation; in each round putting corn where tobacco grew in the last round and tobacco where the corn grew. ‘Treated in this way, and a complete fertilizer used liberally on the tobacco, the peas and corn fed to stock to make manure, the productive capacity of the soil will rapidly in- crease; and the wheat crop can soon be grown without additional fertilizer 144—Crop GROWING AND Crop FEEDING if manure enough is raised to cover the corn tend. While the demands of the tobacco crop for nitrogen and potash can only be fully met by the use of a complete fertilizer, we should endeavor to lessen the amount needed, by the growing of legumes and the accumulation of humus in the soil. But, at the same time, any parsimony in the use of fertilizers when needed will result in loss to the tobacco grower, since only by the most liberal feeding can the maximum crops in quality and quantity be produced. Hence the tobacco crop, instead of being an impoverishment to the farm, can be made, by the sys- tematic rotation of crops and the liberal application of fertilizers, the means for its rapid improvement. FORMS OF FERTILIZERS FOR TOBACCO. While heavy fertilization is needed for the tobacco crop, there is no crop more sensitive to the shape in which the plant food is presented to it. Nitro- gen and potash are its chief needs. But it is not merely potash that is needed, for it is essential that it be free from chlorides; hence only the high grade sulphate should be used. The muriate will make a heavier crop, but a crop of inferior value, and, in fact, a crop worthless for manufacturing where it is to be burned in pipe, cigarette or cigar. A year or so ago I gave the tobacco formula, already printed, to a farmer in the bright tobacco belt -of North Carolina. He wrote afterwards that his crop was of very poor quality, and he wanted to know what was the matter with the fertilizer. He bought the materials from a large firm of fertilizer makers in Norfolk, and he sent me their bill. Where I had designated high grade sulphate of potash they had put in low grade, or kainit. In the bill was charged “sulphate of potash,” and then, in small letters in bracket, “kainit.” It was evidently done for the purpose of disgusting the farmer with home mixed fertilizers, for any manufacturer knows that kainit should never be used in a tobacco fertilizer. The cause of the poor quality of his tobacco was plain. Then, too, the form in which the nitrogen is presented is of some im- portance. We have found that a moderate amount of nitrate of soda, as a starter, and a good supply of organic nitrogen in the form of dried blood, have given better results than cotton seed meal or fish scrap. Fish scrap is apt to contain some chlorides, and is objectionable. Tankage might do if it was pure meat tankage and not largely mixed with bone; but the character of the tankage is too uncertain for reliance. Any excess of phosphoric acid tends to render the tobacco “bony,” as it is called, or thick veined, with a thin, papery leaf, lacking body. The formula we have given is the result of long study and experimentation with various mixtures, and we believe it WHERE ToBACCO IS THE MoNrEY Crop—145 can hardly be improved upon. The full amount of 700 pounds per acre will probably not be needed where a systematic rotation is practiced, and do not let any story of the injurious effects of clover or peas deter you from their use as preparatory crops to tobacco. The story of their injurious effects has been handed down, and accepted as a fact, by those too ready to get an excuse for bad farming. Some peanut growers have the same prejudice against the legumes, probably because someone sometime had a poor crop after a crop of peas, and at once the word went out that peas are destructive to peanuts ; and the tale has been believed by men too lazy to investigate for themselves. Many more of the old wives’ tales in farming have grown up in the same way. CHAPTER XVII. FERTILIZERS FOR THE CORN CROP. While, like tobacco, the chief food needs of the Indian corn plant are nitrogen and potash, and a complete fertilizer will always produce a great increase in the crop, we have never yet made an experiment in which the in- creased crop paid for the outlay in fertilizer at the usual price for corn. In- asmuch as the larger part of the cost of the complete fertilizer is in the nitro- gen, it may be practicable to profitably use a commercial fertilizer on the corn crop if the nitrogen needed is supplied from legumes or manure made at home, and only acid phosphate and potash are used in the mixture applied. Indian corn is one of the essentials in any rotation in American agriculture, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf. It is the chief of all feed crops grown in this country, and lies at the very foundation of all of our national success in the production of beef and pork. We hear a great deal of wise talk about the “great corn belt,” and some seem to suppose that success with the corn crop is confined to the area included in the black prairie lands of Illinois, » Missouri, Iowa and Kansas, and nothing is more common than to hear poor farmers excuse themselves by saying that it is no longer possible, in the East, to compete with the Western farmer, in the production of corn or wheat. The fact is that good farmers all along the Middle and South Atlantic coast are growing as good corn and wheat crops as the Western farmers, and at a better profit, because of their nearness to the great markets. In the wheat growing section of Eastern Maryland a good farm rotation has brought up the production of wheat from 10 or 12 bushels per acre, to 35, 40 and even 50 bushels per acre. At the same time the great wheat farms of the Dakotas have decreased in productiveness, for the reason that one-crop farm- ing will fail anywhere. The Dakota wheat growers are as straight on the road to “old fields” as ever were the tobacco and cotton growers of the South. The exuberant fertility of their soil may delay the final failure, but it will surely come unless better methods are used. Then, too, with the Indian corn crop. Recently, in Illinois, premiums were awarded _ to corn crops of 55 bushels per acre, while in poor old Virginia, North