FOR BETTER CROPS IN TEE SOUTH 21 



With a good supply of plant food stored in the soil, then the 

 thing of greatest importance in the. business of farming is 

 the liberation of sufficient plant food during the growing season 

 to meet the needs of maximum profitable crops. While thorough 

 tillage aids in this process, by far the most effective and practical 

 means within the farmers' own control for liberating plant food 

 from the soil's supply or from insoluble material, as natural rock 

 phosphate which may have been applied, is decaying vegetable 

 matter. 



The farmer or landowner whose farm practice includes these 

 two points; that is, (1) plenty of plant food stored in the soil, or 

 added to it when necessary, and (2) plenty of decaying organic 

 matter to liberate plant food for the crop needs— will have in 

 operation a system of agriculture which is permanent. 



The one point is no more important or essential than the 

 other. The man who tries to maintain the fertility of his soil 

 and who hopes to continue to grow large, profitable grain crops 

 without the use of legume crops or plowing under farm manures 

 or coarse products, but who uses high-priced soluble manufac- 

 tured commerical fertilizers, is unwise, and ultimately his land 

 will probably follow the history of the lands which have been 

 practically ruined by such practice in the eastern states. 



On the other hand, the man, who thinks the productive 

 capacity of the ordinary prairie land in the humid regions of 

 Central United States can be permanently maintained merely 

 by the use of clover in crop rotation, is also unwise, for this is 

 absolutely impossible. So far as phosphorus and other minerals 

 are concerned, the use of clover in crop rotation is one of our 

 most effective means of liberating those plant food elements 

 from the soil so that they may be removed in subsequent grain 

 crops. Furthermore, clover and other legumes are themselves 

 gross feeders on phosphorus, calcium, and potassium. 



It is almost inexplicable that there are people who write and 

 speak at great length and with great energy on the tremendous 

 importance of adding nitrogen to the soil as an element of plant 

 food, but who completely ignore and even deprecate the matter 

 of maintaining in the soil a supply of phosphorus from which 

 we can liberate sufficient amounts for large crops. 



No man can afford to ignore the truth. If there are soils 

 which contain so little phosphorus that we cannot by profitable 

 means liberate sufficient to meet the requirements of large 

 crops, then we should increase the supply; and every man should 

 be sufficiently unprejudiced to ask frankly whether it is more 

 sensible and more profitable positively to increase the total sup- 

 ply of any element of plant food in his soil, or to continue to 

 decrease it by means of crop rotation and the use of decaying 

 organic matter. 



For the ordinary, strictly livestock farm from which only 



