6 THE BUSINESS OF DAIRYING 



many conditions, such as the proper preparation of 

 the land, the kind of crops raised, the relative 

 amounts of the various required constituents and 

 the amount of moisture present. A chemical anal- 

 ysis, however, will give us some idea of the compo- 

 sition and value of our soil. The analyses of soils 

 made by reliable chemists show that even the poorer 

 soils have an abundance of plant food for several 

 crops, while the richer soils in some cases have 

 sufhcient for many years. Since the soil and subsoil 

 contain such stores of fertility and since such deep- 

 rooted plants as clovers and alfalfa bring to the sur- 

 face abundant quantities of nitrogen with some min- 

 eral matter, and since many fields receive applica- 

 tions of farm manure from time to time, there must 

 be some cause tending to restrict production. The 

 principal causes of low yields of farm crops are 

 found in imperfect preparation of the soil and poor 

 tillage. As a result there is a lack of available plant 

 food and insufficient moisture sometimes during 

 growth. We need to better appreciate and utilize 

 nature's storehouse. 



Deposits.^Last year's plant food will not do for 

 this year's any more than last year's plowing. Grow- 

 ing crops must have nitrogen, phosphoric acid and 

 potash as food, which eventually becomes a part of 

 the natural plant. This fixed in mind, the intelligent 

 handling of the fertilizing problem becomes a simple 

 matter. We will regard the soil, then, as a bank in 

 which the forms of plant food are deposited as in- 

 comes or fertilizers and drawn out in the form of 

 salable crops. On the average soil, farm-produced 



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