30 Agricultural Gazette of N.S.W. [Ja}i. 2, 1920. 



prevent it, no sucii benefactof has appeared in recent years, and eventually the 

 means enumerated of restoring lost fertility must be introduced if profitable 

 crops are to be raised. In spite of the fact that the soils of the State generally 

 arc poorer as the result of contiimed cultivation than they were as virgin 

 f-oils, the value of land has inci-eased, and with the influx of population which 

 is bound to come, they will increase still further. To keep pace with this 

 increase, more attention must be given to methods ensuring bigger and more 

 profitable crops. Of these methods, the basic factor is the scientific improve- 

 ment of the soil's fertility ; and, whether as renters or as owners of land, 

 those wh(j find themselves unable to make suflficient profits from their labour, 

 or sufficient interest on their capital, will have to make way for those with 

 increased knowledsre who can. 



The issue has been evaded by the old settlers by moving to virgin soil 

 when the " working out" effect of cultivation has become apparent, but new 

 land is rapidly becoming more scarce. National poverty must in the end 

 surely overtake us if no efFe'"t is made in the direction indicated. It may be 

 urged that such a day is yet a long way off ; nevertheless, if the present-day 

 farmer is careless of the morrow, the question must be faced by the coming 

 generation. For that generation tlie methods of our grandfathers leave a 

 sorry inhei-itance. The betterment of those methods and the question of soil 

 improvement must not be left until farms and farmers are hopelessly poor. 



Advantage of Organic Matter in the Soil, 



The advantages of having a good supply of organic matter in the soil for 

 maize-growing are, in brief, all the advantages of a virgin soil over an old 

 and long cultivated one. The organic matter — which may consist of any form 

 of animal or vegetable matter — aerates the soil and opens it to the better 

 ingress of rain, enables it to retain that moisture for a long time, largely 

 prevents cracking and baking, and checks the leaching of soluble plant food 

 material — especially nitrates. It also prevents in part the washing of soil 

 on a hill slope, h'-lps to render insoluble plant food material available, and 

 itself supplies this material in a form readily assimilable by plants. 



Every practical farmer has doubtless seen the rejuvenating effect of several 

 years of grass pasture or a perennial crop such as lucerne. This is chiefly 

 due to the accumulation of a vast quantity of roots which permeate the soil, 

 and which on decaying increase its content of organic matter or humus. 

 Other things being equal, the greater the amount of organic matter in the 

 soil the richer is the soil in nitrogen, which, as will be seen later, is the most 

 expensive element of plant food, and which is removed from the soil by the 

 maize crop in largest quantity. Most of our maize soils contain amounts 

 of potasli sufficiently large to grow hundreds of maize crops without 

 seriously depleting the total supply, but much of this potash is held in 

 insoluble compounds which the plants cannot make use of, but of wliich the 

 potash is made available by the action of decaying organic matter. Hence 

 the addition of organic matter supplies the soil with the two most costly of 

 the important plant food elements in easily available form. 



