40 The Bulletin 



to good advantage. Potash-supplying materials can be used on most of 

 the soils to good advantage when the price of this constituent is normal. 

 We would not think it necessary to use more than 3 to 4 per cent of pot- 

 ash in the mixture for these crops even when potash is cheap. 



In case the land is very poor or very low in organic matter, so that 

 young plants do not start off well, a sufficient amount of cotton-seed 

 meal, dried blood, or other nitrogen-furnishing material may be added 

 which will supply nitrogen in the mixture up to 1 to 3 per cent. When 

 300 to 500 pounds of 16 per cent acid phosphate is used on such soils 

 50 to 75 pounds of cotton-seed meal or its equivalent in nitrogen con- 

 tent of dried blood or other suitable nitrogen carrier of this constituent 

 may be used usually to good advantage. If it is discovered after the 

 plants have gotten started that nitrogen is needed, as will be indicated 

 by small, slow growth and pale, sickly appearance, the land being well 

 drained, a top dressing of 50 to 75 pounds of nitrate of soda per acre 

 may be applied when the plants are free from rain or dew. This will 

 usually be found to be profitable. 



With the high or moderately high phosphoric acid soils the amounts 

 of phosphoric acid in the fertilizer mixture might in many cases be 

 reduced. Especially would this be so when the organic-matter supply 

 of these soils has been materially increased. This would especially be 

 expected to be the case with the Georgeville Slate Loam, the Georgeville 

 Silty Clay Loam, and the Alamance Slate Loam soils where the slate 

 had thoroughly undergone disintegration. 



With all the mixtures given above on the soils as the amount of 

 organic matter turned back into the soil is increased, especially that 

 from leguminous crops that are being grown on the land with the 

 formation of nodules on their roots, the amounts of cotton-seed meal 

 and other nitrogenous fertilizing materials required in the fertilizer 

 mixtures to give most profitable returns may be materially reduced; 

 in fact, when the supply has become liberal in the soil it might possibly 

 be entirely left out of the fertilizer mixture in nitrogen-carrying ma- 

 terial. It should be the aim of every farmer in the county, as nearly as 

 practicable, to obtain this condition with his soils, for under normal 

 conditions nitrogen is the constituent that is most expensive and the 

 one that is most elusive and thereby easily lost from the soil when the 

 conditions in the soil are not just right. 



CROP ROTATION NECESSARY FOB A PERMANENT SYSTEM OF AGRICULTUREI 



IN THE COUNTY. 



It is the duty of every owner of farm lands in this county, as well 

 as of other counties in the State, to follow methods of crop rotation and 

 fertilization that shall at least maintain the producing power of the 

 soils and build up those that are yielding only small returns at the pres- 

 ent time. At the same time the treatment should be such as to give 



