GREEN MANURING. 



By green manuring is meant the growing of crops for 

 the purpose of plowing them into the soil to increase its 

 fertility. One of the objects of green manuring is to enrich 

 the soil in organic matter, which is valuable, especially with 

 soils that are either too loose or too stiff. The improve- 

 ment consists in bettering the mechanical texture, making 

 soils more retentive of moisture, and consequently less 

 subject to the effects of drouth. The most important feature, 

 however, in connection with green manuring lies in the use 

 of legumes, because these plants are valuable not only for 

 the organic matter they produce, but also for the nitrogen 

 they absorb from the atmosphere, which is useful as plant 

 food for succeeding crops. Plants which are not legumes 

 do not have this property of taking nitrogen from the air. 

 Whatever plant food they contain has been taken from the 

 soil. 



Prof. Wagner has made some interesting experiments 

 showing the value of legumes for green manuring. 



Figure 4 is from a photograph illustrating one of 

 these experiments. The four pots to the left were planted 

 with oats and all of them received sufficient potash and 

 phosphoric acid, but the first two were not supplied with 

 pitrogen, while the other * two received an ample supply. 



