84 THE AMERICAN FARMER 



may be injured by coming in contact with them or with their concentrated solutions in the 

 soil. The roots will find their way to the manure and develop more where it lies, it is true; 

 still, we should not oblige them to huddle together in one place, but should rather encourage 

 them to spread around where, with the increased capacity the fertilizer gives them, they can 

 get the more from the soil. Roots join with other natural agents in rendering inert stores of 

 plant-food available. 



&quot;Above all, do not let the fertilizers come too close to the seed. A coarse, dilute 

 material like yard manure may do the plants no harm, but such concentrated fertilizers as 

 potash salts, dried blood, nitrate of soda, or high grade superphosphates, may kill them.&quot; 



&quot; The testimony of the experiments is on the whole against applying in the hill or drill. 

 The best results in the majority of cases came where the fertilizers were sown broadcast. 

 Several of the very best were where the materials were scattered over a strip a couple of feet 

 or so wide along the rows. Many of the worst results were where the fertilizers were put in 

 the hill or drill. The nitrate of soda and potash salts thus applied often injured the crops, 

 especially in dry weather.&quot; 



Prof. Pendleton of South Carolina, on the contrary, says that in his experiments, super 

 phosphates never produce remarkable results sown broadcast, and he has found that two 

 hundred pounds of phosphoric acid will produce more effect in the drill than five hundred 

 pounds sown broadcast. The explanation he gives for this effect is. that the superphosphates 

 find plenty of bases, such as clay, iron, lime, etc., in the whole soil to reduce the solubility 

 before the rootlets of the plants find it; while in the drill, sufficient remains in direct contact 

 with the roots to give the plant a vigorous start. He also found by experiment, that equal 

 parts of lime and superphosphate produced one hundred and thirty -seven pounds of cotton 

 less per acre than the same quantity of superphosphate alone. 



When used in the drill, we have, in our experience and observation, found the &quot;best 

 results only to be attained when the fertilizers were mixed with four or five, or more, times 

 their bulk of earth and thus diluted. This is very important, as the strong chemical sub 

 stances contained in them will be liable to injure the germs of the seeds or the rootlets of 

 the young plant. When applied as a top-dressing to growing crops, artificial manure should 

 be applied only in wet weather. 



The Fallow System was formerly much practiced in England, and also in this coun 

 try to a certain extent, but at present is partially, if not almost entirely, discarded by the 

 leading agriculturists of both countries. It is a very ancient custom in agriculture, and is a 

 means of enriching lands by allowing them to rest for one or more seasons, after partial 

 exhaustion occasioned by continuous production. No tillage is required except one or more 

 plowings, and thus exposing the soil to the action of the elements. Such lands are some 

 times termed &quot;naked fallows.&quot; This system is founded upon the principle that the soil has 

 stored up within it vast quantities of plant-food, which is not in a condition to be available 

 for the present use of vegetation; that the crops which the soil has previously produced have 

 exhausted most of the available soluble food, such as potash, phosphoric acid, etc., and unless 

 these elements that have been extracted from the soil, in the production of previous crops, can 

 be returned to it in some form of fertilizers, suited to the immediate support of plants, 

 time must be given for dissolving (by the disintegrating process so constantly going on in 

 all soils) such elements as are now locked up in the soil, and which will become available 

 before the period of another sowing. The advocates of this practice claim that it not only 

 greatly improves the condition of the soil, but is also the surest means of destroying noxious 

 weeds; while the objections urged against it are not only a loss of the use of the land by the 

 period of idleness, but a great loss of much of the fertilizing element of the soil by evapora 

 tion and drainage, exposed as it is during the summer to the hot rays of the sun, drying 

 winds, and leaching rains. 



