FERTILIZERS IN THE WEST 



In order to be able to grow, the plant, in addition to the 

 water and the carbon dioxide taken from the atmosphere, 

 extracts from the soil a large amount of material to build up 

 its tissues. When the crop is sold all this material taken from 

 the soil is removed with it and is forever lost. . It is true that 

 all ordinary soils are immensely rich in some food elements 

 needed by plants, and that they are practically inexhaustible 

 in these. But there are just three elements; potash, phos- 

 phorus and nitrogen, that are of the greatest importance to 

 the plant, and it is exactly these same three elements which 

 are^wsually found in soils in only small quantities, and unfor- 

 tunately by far the larger portion of them is in such a state 

 of combination that the plant cannot get hold of them. It is 

 only logical that if you do not want to rob your soil and if 

 you wish to maintain or increase its fertility you must put 

 back into it whatever your crop has removed. Otherwise 

 your soil is bound to run down quickly. If you continuously 

 draw money from your bank and make no deposits, your 

 account will soon be exhausted. The same is true of the plant 

 food elements in the soil. 



Take for instance oats, wheat or potatoes. A sixty bushel 

 crop of oats removes from the soil 55 pounds of nitrogen, 22 

 pounds of phosphoric acid and 62 pounds of potash, while a 

 thirty-five bushel crop of wheat removes, 59 pounds, 24 pounds 

 and 31 pounds, respectively, and a two hundred bushel crop 

 of potatoes, 46 pounds, 21 pounds and 74 pounds. In order 

 to compensate for these losses, every farmer should add to his 

 soil at least those quantities of the different elements that are 

 taken out of the soil. 



