We Do The Bookkeeping for Your Soil Fertility Bank Account 



Hare is a general view of the Whiteside County Farm Bureau soil laboratory 



SET UP LABS FOR TESTING 



WTIT E DO the bookkeeping for your 

 fl soil fertility bank account." 

 This could very well be the sign 

 posted by a number of county Farm 

 Bureaus these days as they launch soil 

 testing laboratories to serve the farm- 

 ers of their respective areas. 



Some 27 county Farm Bureaus have 

 signified their intention of starting 

 laboratories and several of these are 

 already in operation. Laboratories have 

 been started in Whiteside and Lee 

 counties, and Morgan county was 

 scheduled to start operating in mid- 

 January. 



Here is the plan that most Farm Bu- 

 reau soil laboratories are following, ac- 

 cording to R. H. Bray, chief, soil sur- 

 vey analysis, U. of I. College of Agri- 

 culture. The plan is to have one of 

 the Farm Bureau personnel receive 

 training at the University in running 

 tht tests before potash testing is at- 

 tempted. This person is then given 

 bottles of standard "K' solution as a 

 "graduation present" and takes them 

 back and uses them to check his work. 

 Some of the first soil samples run 

 are sent to the University and the re- 

 sults are checked. Bray also reports 

 that men from his department plan to 

 drop in on the laboratories occasionally 

 with standard samples and have the op- 

 erator run them to help check their 

 work. This cooperation, is purely 



voluntary. The farm adviser is re- 

 sponsible for the interpretation of the 

 tests to the farmer. 



County Farm Bureaus that have 

 started laboratories, or plan to have 

 them in operation soon are: Bureau, 

 Champaign, Christian, Cook, DeKalb, 

 Edwards, Grundy, Henry, Jo Daviess, 

 Kane, LaSalle, Lee, Macoupin, Mar- 

 shall-Putnam, McDonough, McHenry, 

 McLean, Morgan, St. Clair, Sangamon. 

 Scott, Shelby, Stephenson, Tazewell, 

 Williamson, Whiteside, and Woodford. 



At the Whiteside County Farm Bu- 

 reau soil testing laboratory which was 



Mrs. Finnicum, Whiteside county's soil 



fertility bookkeeper, with the photolometer 



which aids in reading potash tests. 



set up last fall. Farm Adviser Frank 

 Shuman reported that in a very short 

 period of time the laboratory com- 

 pleted more than 600 soil tests cover- 

 ing some 48 farms. Seventy-three per 

 cent of these tests indicate that the soil 

 was from low to slight in phosphorus; 

 27 per cent medium to high and only 

 4 per cent showed high. He further 

 stated that these tests indicated that 

 48 per cent were low in potash, yield- 

 ing barely 100 pounds to the acre. 



"We have not been awake to p>otash 

 needs," Shuman said. "We must em- 

 phasize and re-emphasize the need of 

 rock phosphate and muriate of potash 

 ahead of legume crops to build up the 

 organic matter and to hold moisture. 



Here's the comment of Thomas Ken- 

 nedy, Whiteside county, on the worth 

 of the laboratory, "Why should I hes- 

 itate to pay a few dollars for soil test- 

 ing when I have lost several hundred 

 dollars worth of clover seed the last 

 two years and don't know why I lost 

 it?" 



Kennedy had sweet clover growing 

 in strips across his field. The test 

 showed sweet soil where the sweet 

 clover was growing and a 2-ton acidity 

 on the bare spots. One field tested so 



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L A, A. RECORD 



