246 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



In this connection it might be well to speak of losses of opportunities 

 to add humus to soils incurred by burning corn fodder and wheat straw. 

 A ton of corn-fodder contains three dollars' worth of nitrogen figured at 

 prices charged for it in commercial fertilizers. A ton of wheat straw con- 

 tains almost as much. When these substances are burned the nitrogen 

 contained in them escapes into the air and can never be returned except 

 by the use of leguminous plants. A man who rakes and burns corn stalks 

 wastes at least sixty dollars' worth of nitrogen for every day that he 

 works, to say nothing of the loss of other beneficial effects of the humus 

 that might have been added to the soil by cutting the stalks and plowing 

 them under. 



Humus not only adds nitrogen, but it keeps the soil in a mellow con- 

 dition which makes tillage easy and also allows water to percolate into 

 the soil more rapidly and prevents puddling in rainy weather. One of 

 the surest, indications of deficiency in humus is a soft, sticky condition of 

 the top soil during rainy weather, accompanied by a hard, baked condition 

 during dry weather. 



Humus also increases the capacity of the soil to absorb and retain 

 moisture, thus aiding much to secure the presence of that large supply of 

 water we have seen to be necessary for crop production. A single in- 

 stance will illustrate this fact. 



During the extreme drouth of 1901 it became my duty to determine 

 the moisture in the soil of about thirty different fields upon which various 

 crops were growing. Among them were two orchard soils. One had the 

 following treatment : Late in the previous fall twenty loads of barnyard 

 manure to the acre were applied and the manure plowed under and then 

 thoroughly disced into the soil. Rye was then sown and this was plowed 

 under early in the spring. The soil was disced after each heavy rain until 

 the rains stopped falling during the latter part of April. This orchard 

 was on upland soil. The other orchard was on first class bottom soil but 

 had not had any application of manure and was not tilled after the rains. 

 At the close of an unbroken period of 90 days drouth the soil that had the 

 application of manure and the tillage, contained 16^ per cent, of moisture 

 while the unmanured and untilled soil contained only 9J/2 per cent, of 

 moisture. This difference in moisture content will appear more striking 

 when compared with the condition of crops growing on soils of similar 

 moisture content. In every case, on the very best of soil, corn was dead 

 and dry enough to burn where the moisture had fallen as low as 8j/^ per 

 cent. On clay soil it was dead at 11^ per cent, of moisture. When the 

 moisture in the soil is between 16 per cent, and 20 per cent, we have the 

 best conditions for growing crops. Of course the tillage of the soil great- 

 ly affected the difference in the moisture content of these soils, -but 

 the humus must certainly be credited with a large share of it. 



