240 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



tion, in which the land is mown till it no longer makes paying crops 

 of ha}^, so reduces the humus in the soil, as well as the mineral 

 matter, phosphorus in particular, that clover does not find the 

 food it requires, and the soil has become so acid that the nitrogen 

 fixing bacteria do not thrive, and hence clover fails. The remedy 

 is a shorter rotation of crops, legumes more frequently grown and 

 fed on the laud, the humus content of the soil increased by the 

 legume roots and the manure made from feeding the hay, the growth 

 of which has been promoted by applications of the phosphatic fer- 

 tilizers and an occasional liming. 



But here is where many farmers have made a mistake. Noting 

 the good effects of a first liming of the land, they jump to the con- 

 clusion that lime is all the manure they need, and they use it in a 

 lavish way, only to find finally that lime no longer gives them the 

 great results it did at first, and that they are compelled to resort 

 to commercial fertilizers. I know of sections in this State where, 

 in my college days, the farmers applied 100 or more bushels of lime 

 per acre, where on the same lands now but 25 bushels is used, since 

 the farmers have learned the true office of lime, and have discovered 

 that a smaller amount per acre applied more frequently in connec- 

 tion with the legumes, is better than a large amount applied with 

 the notion that lime is a manure. 



It is by no means the purpose of this paper to lay down rules for 

 every farmer to adopt in the rotation and cultivation of his lands. 

 That would be pure agricultural quackery. We must assume that 

 every farmer who is a student of his profession, is wise enough to 

 adapt any suggestions that we make to his own conditions. What 

 we wish to impress on the farmers is the importance of a shorter 

 rotation of crops, the regular use of legumes for increasing the 

 available nitrogen supply and the humus in the soil and the feeding 

 of stock better than timothy ever will, the giving to the- legumes 

 abundantly the mineral elements of plant food which they need in 

 order to do better their work of nitrogen fixation, and ^eavirqj them 

 to do the rest. In brief, the office of the commercial fertilizers 

 should be the feeding of the crops that feed both the soil and the 

 stock. If the legumes are well supplied with phosphorus and potas- 

 sium you may depend on their producing the sale crops and feeding 

 the stock. Just what a man's rotation, and what his money crops 

 shall be must be determined by the man himself from his knowledge 

 of his own conditions. But it is evident that the successful farmer 

 of the future must be a legume farmer, and the man who puts his 

 greatest efforts into the production of the legumes and the feeding 

 of the forage will always have the money crops in larger amount 

 than the man who gambles with a complete fertilizer merely to get 

 more to sell off his* land direct. On most of the soils of Pennsyl- 

 vania the pulverized floats and lime will be all that he need buy 

 for his land, and the legume farmer who keeps up with the advance 

 in modern scientific investigations will farm more cheaply than the 

 fertilizer gambler, while having more crops to sell. But he must be 

 a student of his soil. Our soils vary so much even on the same farm, 

 in their mechanical make-up and chemical composition, that different 

 treatments and different fertilization are required. The chemist 

 can tell you what a soil contains, but he can give you little informa- 

 tion as to the availability of the matters in it, and the only man 



