Official Document, No. 6. 



PAPERS SELECTED PROM .THOSE READ AT 



THE ANNUAL MEETING OF FARMERS' 



INSTITUTE MANAGERS. 



A BALANCED RATION FOR PLANTS; HOW TO GET IT. 



BY PUOF. L. A. CI^INTON, Ithaca, N. Y. 



By a ''balanced ration for plants/' we mean the presence in the 

 soil, in the available form and in the proper proportions, of the 

 various soil-derived elements necessary for the growth of plants and 

 for the development of fruit and seed. Fortunately for the tiller of 

 the soil, nature has made a wise and liberal provision for plant food, 

 and in all our arable lauds there are usually found in abundance 

 the various plant foods required. We find, however, that as the soil 

 is subjected to cultivation, and as plants are grown and removed 

 from the soil, they draw unequally upon the mineral elements stored, 

 and ultimately there is a deficiency of some one or more elements, or 

 while there may not be any deficiency in the total amount present, 

 yet the plant food is not available, and some measures must be taken 

 to balance up the ration again. 



The soil is a part of nature's great chemical laboratory, and if the 

 work is left to nature she will do her work w^ell, though she may take 

 thousands of years in which to do it. We cannot wait for nature to 

 perform the work alone, but we may co-operate with her in hasteuiug 

 the processes which are going on in our soils, and we may even draw 

 from nature's special laboratories, where she has made a business of 

 manufacturing phosphates or nitrates or salts of potash. Whether, 

 then, we assist in the work by tillage or by the use of commercial 

 fertilizers, we are simply co-operating with nature. 



"Man does not live by bread alone," is an expression the truth of 

 which we all recognize. The term "a balanced ration" has become 

 familiar to all as applied to animals, but we have not come to recog- 

 nize its meaning generally when applied to plants. 



The most careless feeder of animals now recognizes the fact that 

 in order to produce best results there must be a certain relation 

 between the various elements of food supplied, this relation varying 

 somewhat according to the conditions and according to the product 

 desired, whether that product be energy, or milk, or flesh. This re- 

 lation, or r^tio, may vary within certain limits without materially 



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