466 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[ November, 



the comparative exhaustive 

 powers of the cereals.* 



[concluded.] 



Lime. — This, in a strictly scientific sense, is 

 not a fertilizer. All soils, we believe, contain 

 an abundant supply of it for any crop ; but in 

 the primitive signification of manure, to ope- 

 rate by the hands, from the Latin nvmus, it 

 performs an important function in plant 

 growth. The small amount required for a 

 profitable crop of wheat, corn or oats should 

 convince any intelligent hearer that there is 

 no necessity of rendering land "lime-sick" by 

 the application of one hundred or one hun- 

 dred and fifty bushels per acre at a single 

 dressing. We do not wish to be under- 

 stood as opposing the use of lime or inter- 

 fering with its sale, but if the money use- 

 lessly expended in the application of lime 

 were placed at our disposal we could maintain 

 a farm-school of such a character that as in- 

 fluence would be felt throughout our noble 

 old commonwealth. Lime acts by its causti- 

 city alone — separating, manipulating, disin- 

 tegrating and comminuting the particles of 

 vegetable matter in the soil, so as to render 

 them soluble by rain and snow, and convert 

 this vegetable matter into plant-food. That 

 this is the true province of lime, any one can es- 

 tablish beyond the peradventure of a doubt, by 

 taking soil devoid of vegetable matter, liming 

 one-half of it, and seeding poth portions of it at 

 the same time to the same variety of grain. 

 Lime by l^eing slaked, exposed to water, be- 

 comes converted to hydrated lime and loses 

 much of its causticity upon being applied to 

 the soil in a powdered condition. 



The application of twenty bushels per acre 

 upon the most luxuriant growth of vegetation 

 is sufficient for any dressing. 



All chemical combinations take place by 

 ■what is known as tne "law of definite propor- 

 tion." Permit me to resort to a simple illus- 

 tration; You order a boy to form heaps of two 

 white beans and one black bean each, i. e. 

 three beans in each heap ; you furnish him 

 with ten bushels of white beans and with only 

 two hundred black beans — there is no mind on 

 earth that can assist him in forming more 

 than two hundred heaps by conforming to 

 your order. In like manner lime, and all 

 other substances enter into combination. If 

 you have an excess of lime for the vegetable 

 matter, it passes back into the carbonate of 

 lime, the form in which it was before burning, 

 and is as useless for manurial purposes as 

 those vast rocks that jut through the soil and 

 mar the beauty of your valley. 



True, it acts mechanically by separating a 

 stiff, tenacious clay, and rendering it more 

 friable and porous. " 



Multitudes of experiments establish the 

 fact that an excessive supply of lime counter- 

 acts tlie beneficial influence of soluble phos- 

 phate (bi-phosphate), by rendering it tribasic 

 or insoluble phosphate. Lime is not all 

 equally caustic. This property can be most 

 easily discovered by testing the stone before 

 burning. 



Drop a few drops of either sulphuric, chlor- 

 hydric or nitric acid upon the cold stone, and 

 if effervescence result, the stone is rich in 

 lime ; if the acid or stone must be warmed to 

 produce effervescence, the stone is composed 

 largely of magnesia. 



We deem the following outline a profitable 

 application of lime ; haul the lime upon large 

 piles in the field ; cover with sods or earth to 

 exclude rain ; apply, after slaking, at the rate 

 of twenty or twenty-five bushels per acre ; 

 plow as shallow as possible to cover the sod 

 properly ; by this means the sod will decom- 

 pose more rapidly than if plowed under 

 deeper ; cultivate throughly, so as to incor- 

 porate decomposed vegetable matter and lime 

 with the soil, and you have a fertile seed-bed. 



Manure and lime should never be applied at 

 the same time, as the lime liberates the am- 

 monia. If both are to be applied during the 



*An address delivered by Prof, S. B. Heiges. of Tork, Pa., 

 at the Tri-State Plc-Nic of the Patrons of Husbandry, at 

 Williams' Grove, Thursday, August 29th, 1878, 



same season, spread and plough down the ma- 

 nure, allowing as long a time to intervene 

 before applying the lime as possible, in order 

 that the moist, porous earth may absorb and 

 retain the ammonia ; scatter the lime upon 

 the surface, give a second ploughing or 

 thorough cultivation, that the lime may be 

 incorporated with the soil, and you have a 

 fertile seed-bed by the second process. 



The advantages of this system are: in a 

 given number of years, say twenty-five, yon 

 will have used as much lime per acre as by 

 the heavy dressing process, the lime will have 

 acted upon four crops of sod or vegetable 

 matter, instead of one, little or none of the 

 lime will have passed into the rock condition, 

 and the increased fertility and crops during 

 the period will amply compensate for the ad- 

 ditional expense of hauling and spreading. 



Magnesia is found in all varieties of soil, 

 and perhaps no direct application of this mild 

 alkali need be made, yet we deem an applca- 

 tion of lime rich in magnesia would be profit- 

 able for oats, from the vast amount found in 

 that cereal. Bran, says Leibig, is rich in am- 

 moniacal phosphate of magnesia. 



Suljyhuric Acid can be most cheaply applied 

 in the form of superphosphatSj or gypsum 

 (plaster, sulphate of lime) ; the latter, which 

 has gone into general disuse in this country, 

 is too valuable to pass unnoticed. It furnishes 

 sulphuric acid, is a great retainer of moisture, 

 and converts the volatile carbonate of ammo- 

 nia into the non-volatile and soluble sulphate 

 of ammonia. No farmer can afford to discard 

 this valuable auxiliary to his manure pile. 



Chlorine is found merely as a trace in the 

 cereals, and is most easily added to the soil in 

 the form of common salt, to which we have 

 already adverted. 



Let me not be understood as teaching that 

 the application of the given number of pounds 

 of the various substances that constitute a 

 crop of wheat, corn or oats will produce crops 

 of equal value. We teach no such doctrine. 

 The soil must contain many times the amount 

 of food taken up by the growing crop. 



When we consider that an acre of good soil, 

 one foot in depth, weighs 4,000,000 pounds 

 (2,000 tons), and that if we plough and fertil- 

 ize six inches in depth, the plant-food is mixed 

 with 1,000 tons of soil ; that the roots and 

 rootlests of any crop come in contact with but 

 a comparative small portion of the soil, we 

 discover the necessity of a liberal application 

 of some fertilizing agency. 



We wish the farmers could see the profit of 

 ample fertilization. If but half the number 

 of acres should receive the entire amount of 

 manure how great a saving of labor to man 

 and beast, in the way of hauling and plough- 

 ing, harrowing and planting, cultivating, har- 

 vesting and gathering would result therefrom. 

 Thorough improvement of the entire farm 

 would be reached in a short time, even if a 

 greater portion had to lie fallow, or to grass 

 each year, whilst improving the portion under 

 cultivation. 



We have considered the most important 

 chemical substances that enter into the forma- 

 tion of the cereals. There remain the various 

 forms of vegetable matter, as grass, straw, 

 clover, and the products of the barnyard. It 

 is evident that the greater the supply of vege- 

 table matter added to the soil the greater be- 

 comes its power to return to the farmer vegeta- 

 ble matter in the various forms needed. If all 

 forms of vegetable matter were returned in 

 sufficient quantities we would have a perfect 

 system of fertilization. The effects of steam- 

 power and machinery in general upon labor 

 we surrender to the consideration of the politi- 

 cal economist and statistician; but their use 

 has been highly prejudicial to the fertility of 

 long cultivated soils. The transportation of 

 countless millions of bushels of entire gi;ain, 

 rendered profital)le by railway and steamship, 

 has robbed our soil of its most important food, 

 phosphoric acid. In olden times, when the 

 wheat was all floured and the refuse fed to the 

 farm stock, the phosphoric acid was not all 

 transported to foreign lands. The phosphoric 

 acid, as all intelligent farmers know, resides 



almost entirely in the thin shell, known as the 

 bran. 



Again, reapers and mowers cut the crops so 

 closely to the ground that the germs of grow- 

 ing clover and grasses are too much exposed to 

 the heat of the sun during the longest and 

 hottest days of summer. Following with the 

 spring-toothed horse-rake every particle of hay 

 and straw is gathered up, the leaving of which 

 upon the soil as a mulch would be far more 

 profitable. The packing of hay and straw into 

 small bulk by means of hay-presses, rendering 

 them portable commodities, has caused the sale 

 of thousands of tons that otherwise would have 

 been used on the farm and returned to the soil. 

 The conversion of thousands of tons of straw 

 into paper is another important factor — but 

 why enlarge? All these various agencies of im- 

 poverishment should be comprehended by 

 every thoughtful agriculturist, and the inquiry 

 should be, can we render machinery so useful 

 as to counterbalance^'all these evils ? 



It remains yet for us to show the means by 

 which vegetation can be most economically 

 employed to keep up and increase the fertility 

 ef the soil; for such means we have placed at 

 our disposal. 



The conversion of clover and the various 

 grasses into plant food is the simplest, and 

 undoubtedly the cheapest form of applying 

 vegetable matter. A ton of grass ploughed 

 down and thoroughly decomposed will fur- 

 nish four times the amount of potash, one- 

 half time the amount of phosphoric acid, and 

 more than a sufficient amount of all the 

 other minerals needed for a ton of corn or 

 wheat. 



The straw of the cereals thoroughly decom- 

 posed and applied to the land will produce 

 nearly enough of magnesia, quarter enough 

 phosphoric acid, and more than enough of the 

 other minerals to reproduce a crop of equal 

 value. 



Grass ploughed down will furnish twice as 

 much potash, half enough phosphoric acid, 

 and a sufficient quantity of the other minerals 

 to produce a crop of field peas, equal in weight 

 with the stalks to the amount of grass ploughed 

 down; and a crop of peas yielding thirty-six 

 bushels per acre, if ploughed down with the 

 stalks, will be sufficient manure for a profit- 

 able crop of wheat. 



A crop of tm'nips if eaten upon the field by 

 sheep, will furnish sufficient fertility for a 

 profitable crop of any of the cereals. Three 

 hundred pounds of high-grade superphosphate 

 per acre should produce a profitable crop of 

 turnips. 



We must resort to one or all of these 

 methods of fertilizing. We will shortly pass 

 through the severest ordeal to which farmers 

 of the Atlantic States have ever been sub- 

 jected. The vast number of farmers now 

 moving to the fertile new lands of the west 

 will flood our seaboard cities with such quanti- 

 ties of the most profitable grains as will place, 

 us entirely without the pale of competitione 

 Each new railroad constructed in these fertile 

 sections will but add to their advantages, and 

 such a state will continue until numerous 

 cities and countless towns spring in their 

 midst, that they have consumers nearer home. 

 Be not deluded with the thought that drought 

 and locusts may shorten their crops, and in a 

 few years these new fields will be abandoned. 

 There are immense sections, many times the 

 area of the grain sections of the east, as free 

 from these evils as ours. 



Neither be deluded with that other silly 

 remedy so often proposed — fruits and vege- 

 tables. Already the markets of our large 

 cities are often over-stocked with the products 

 of the truck-patch, and not one farmer in a 

 thousand ever sends a crate of berries to mar- 

 ket. What would be the result if every far- 

 mer should turn orchardist ? Apples, peaches . 

 and pears would soon reach the destination of 

 berries in a season of over-production — the 

 waters of the wharf. 



Nevertheless every farmer should raise an j 

 abundance of all kinds of fruits for family use, 

 and, if a market be convenient, such an ex- 

 cess as may prove profitable. 



