THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA. 



225 



very long and very liable to Ijrcakage and the chances are 

 .altogether too great of breaking their legs to make it wise 

 to catch them in the hands or in any other way than with 

 such a net. 



The Ring Xeck pheasant attains its fully plumage dur- 

 ing its first year at from five to seven months. The female 

 lays from 50 to 120 eggs per season. The eggs hatch in 

 24 days. The birds breed the spring following the year 

 in which they are hatched, and (ine male will mate with 

 from one to six hens. The Amherst attains full ]ilumage 

 in its second year, lays 30 to 40 eggs per season, breeds 

 the first year if the young hen is mated with a two-year- 

 old male. They mate one male with from one to three 

 hens and the eggs hatch in 22 days. The Reeves attains 

 its full plumage the first year, lays 35 to 40 eggs per sea- 

 son, breeds the second year, mates one male to not ex- 

 ceeding three hens and the eggs hatch in 25 days. The 

 Golden gains its full plumage the second year, the eggs 

 hatch in 21 days, it lays 25 to 35 eggs per season, and 

 breeds the first year if an old male is mated with young 

 hens. It mates one male to not exceeding five hens. The 

 Silver attains its full plumage in the second year, lays 

 45 to 50 eggs per season, breeds the second year and 

 mates in pairs. The eggs hatch in 27 days. 



INCREASING THE SOIL'S FERTILITY. 



Probaiily no subject connected with the field, farm 

 ■or garflen has been more written about or less defi- 

 nitely settled than that of soil enrichment, or "ma- 

 nuring," writes F. F. Rockwell in The Field. In a 

 broad sense, anything added to the soil to increase its 

 fertility may be termed a manure. While there are 

 several different classes of such materials, the lines 

 between them cannot be sharply and distinctly drawn, 

 and the result is confusion of thought on the whole 

 subject. To get the matter down to any practical 

 basis for discussion, however, we must make distinc- 

 tions, alth<jugh they may be more or less arbitrary. 

 The first general classification to make is that of 

 ori^aiiic in contradistinction to inorganic manures; 

 that is, the animal or barnyard manures and green 

 manures, as ditterentiated from chemical fertilizers. 

 Here, however, we at once see the difficulty of making 

 a hard ami fast line, as manufactured organic ma- 

 nures, such as the slaughter-house products of 

 ground bone, bone black, tankage, dried blood and so 

 forth, in practical work are handled and applied with 

 the chemical fertilizers, such as nitrate and potash 

 salts and rock phosphates. 



Omitting all ciuestions of "why" and "how," which 

 the scientists are still fighting out among themselves, 

 the following principles are well enough established 

 to have already served as a foundation for successful 

 soil improvement. 



First — That plants derive their nourishment frcmi 

 the so-called plant-food elements in the soil. (The 

 legumes being a partial exception, as through nitro- 

 gen gathering bacteria upon their roots, thev have the 

 capacity of deriving a large amount of nitrogen from 

 the air.) 



Second — That these plant-food elements must be in 

 certain chemical conditions or combinations before 

 the ])lant roots can absorb them, or before they are 

 "available," as it is termed. And until these elements 

 are converted by the chemical action constantly going 

 on in the soil into available forms, they are of no 

 more use to the plant than a cocoamit would be to a 

 starving shipwrecked sailor if he were unable to break 

 the shell. 



Third — That b\- intelligent culti\-atii m we can 



hasten this process of converting unavailable plant 

 food into available forms. This may be accomplished 

 by maintaining proper conditions of air and moisture 

 in the soil, through under-draining and surface culti- 

 vation to counteract the extremes of wet and dry 

 weather; by improving the mechanical condition of 

 the soil bv breaking the soil particles up as fine as 

 possible, and by adding chemical and bacteriological 

 agents, such as lime and various classes of bacteria 

 which take a direct and active part in preparing the 

 raw plant food for the table to be set for the plants' 

 feeding rootlets. 



Fourth — That soils that have been under cultivation 

 for a considerable time are likely to become depleted 

 in one or more of the following elements : Nitrogen, 

 phosphoric acid, jjotassium (or potash), and some- 

 times calcium (or lime). That when any one of these 

 becomes deficient, the plant growth becomes checked 

 and a suijerabundance of any of the other elements 

 cannot make up for the shortage ; but by adding to the 

 soil these various elements, in the proportion needed, 

 we can directly feed the plant. 



With these principles fixed firmly in mind, we have 

 a foundation ujion which to go ahead and lay out a 

 system of maintaining and increasing the fertility of 

 our fields by making the best use of each of the sev- 

 eral materials which are available for that purpose. 



The most generally used of these available classes 

 of material, which I have already briefly mentioned, 

 are the several kinds of animal manures. 



A hundred pounds of a high-grade, complete fer- 

 tilizer contains more actual, available ])lant food than 

 a ton of average manure ; but you would go a long way 

 to find any practical farmer or gardener who would 

 prefer the former instead of the latter if he could have 

 either delivered to him on the field at the same price. 

 -Some of the soil scientists of the last generation con- 

 sidered that this was merely prejudice on the part of 

 the practical gro\ver, whom they considered not ready 

 to follow the lead of science. As a matter of fact, 

 however — as is not infrecjuently the case — it w^as the 

 practical man rather than the scientist who was in the 

 lead. Because manure is valuable not only as a car- 

 rier of jjlant fix 1(1, but also as a source of bacteriologi- 

 cal action, a means of improving the physical condi- 

 tion of the soil, anil for supplying humus, or the 

 spongelike, water-absorbing vegetable matter which 

 helped to maintain the supply of soil moisture. Without 

 moisture all growth must cease, even in the richest 

 soil. This water-holding humus is necessary to carry 

 crops through a season's periods of deficient rainfall. 



Our aim in handling animal manures should be to 

 treat them in such a way that the plant foods which 

 they contain are saved and converted in the most 

 available forms possible, that bacteriological action 

 will be promoted, and that the physical condition of 

 the manure will be made such that it can be handled 

 readily and will be of benefit to the physical condition 

 of the soil. In addition to this, of course, it should be 

 handled by a s\-stem involving the least possible trou- 

 ble and exi)ense. The best system of handling it, in 

 any^ particular case, will depend upon how it is to be 

 used and what kind it is. Manure that is allowed to 

 ferment loses a great deal in bulk — in the case of ordi- 

 nary mixed yard manure usually- about one-half — and 

 also usually about one-half of the nitrogen and potas- 

 sium, and one-fourth of the phosphoric acid which it 

 contains wdien fresh. If in addition to this it is ex- 

 posed to the weather, still greater losses take place, 

 as not only are the natural liquids lost, but a great 



