THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
February 16 
114 
BALANCED PLANT FOOD. 
Part I. 
Wood Ashes and Bone. 
We begin the study of a “ balanced 
ration” for plants with a discussion of 
“ashes and bone,” for several reasons. 
Next to stable manure, they are the two 
manurial substances most asked about 
and most commonly known. Ashes and 
bone supply everything that a plant 
needs to grow and develop—just as 
clover hay and corn meal make an easily 
understood substitute for a milch cow’s 
natural food—grass. We have seen that 
it is often desirable to feed other foods 
than clover and corn, either because 
other substances give us the required 
nutriment in a cheaper form, or because 
more soluble or digestible food is wanted. 
In like manner, ashes and bone make 
the simplest and most easily understood 
mixture for supplying the fertility in 
stable manure. Intelligent men stop 
using only clover and corn when they 
find that ensilage, straw and various 
by-products of the mills, give them 
cheaper muscle-makers, fat-formers and 
pure fat. That was one great object in 
studying the “Balanced Ration, and in 
the same way, when a man finds that 
other materials will give the essentials 
of plant food for less money than they 
can be bought in ashes and bone, he will 
use these other substances of course. 
Another evident thing is that clover and 
corn would not answer for a little calf. 
It must have milk and the most digest¬ 
ible foods until its digestive apparatus 
is strong enough to make use of the 
harder, coarser fodders. 
We shall find the same true of the 
plant. The baby plant with its tiny 
roots, is like the calf, and needs soluble 
food, close at hand—right in the pail, 
and not a mile away—over the fence. 
Another thing that we learned is that 
it is safest to feed animals certain pro¬ 
portions of their food—both for the sake 
of economy, and to keep them in the 
best of health. We shall find this true 
also of feeding plants, very much so in 
the matter of economy, and somewhat 
so in the matter of proper development. 
It is the purpose of these articles to 
try to show how some of the principles 
we have studied in cattle feeding, may 
also be applied to crop feeding. Start¬ 
ing with the assumption that stable 
manure—or the refuse of former crops— 
is the most natural plant food, just as 
grass is the most natural stock food— 
we wish to learn how we can best add 
to stable manure, or even provide a sub¬ 
stitute for it. Starting with ashes and 
bone as the best known substitute, let 
us see why and how they provide plant 
food, and then see, as we did in the case 
of grains and fodders, in what other 
forms the essentials of plant food are 
found. We hope to touch upon soils in 
this connection, how the plant starts, 
grows and feeds, and what mechanical 
and chemical operations enable it to 
feed to the best advantage from seeding 
to harvest. We want to follow a plant 
—through its life—in a brief and simple 
way. We think that it will pay stock 
feeders to follow us, as we hope to make 
A farm of 420 acres, having 12,000 fruit 
trees—apples, pears, peaches, cherries 
planted five years ago, can be bought this 
winter at a low price. The farm nearly 
adjoins the city of Chillicothe, O., lies on 
fine rolling land well adapted to fruit 
culture and stock raising. The owner 
died and the land came into the hands of 
a corporation whose business is not farm¬ 
ing or fruit growing. It is a fine oppor¬ 
tunity for the right man. For full in¬ 
formation address A. C. Houghton, 81 
Wheeler Building, Columbus, O.— Adv. 
the “Balanced Ration” problem clearer 
as we go along. 
Now what is the substance we call 
ashes ? Suppose that we cut down a big 
oak tree weighing a ton, dry it and 
thoroughly burn it to what we call 
ashes. Instead of the ton of oak wood, 
we have but about 60 pounds of a gray, 
fine substance, which evidently repre¬ 
sents that part of the tree which cannot 
be destroyed by fire. The remaining 
1,940 pounds have evidently passed away 
in the form of gas during the burning. 
What we call soil is indestructible. You 
may grind it and burn it or dissolve it 
in acids, but you can’t drive it away in 
the form of a gas. You may take sea 
water and heat it so as to drive off all 
the water in it, yet there will still be 
left the salt, though when it was dis¬ 
solved in the water, it was invisible and 
apparently changed in form. 
The point for you to see is that the 
ash of the tree represents that part 
which actually comes out of the soil. It 
is a collection of minerals, as much so as 
iron, copper or gold. They were dis- 
sol ved out of the soil, and carried through 
the roots of the tree into its body and 
branches, to be deposited wherever 
needed for growth or strength. Some of 
these minerals may have been applied as 
manure, but you will see that they must 
at some previous time, have existed as a 
part of the soil and, perhaps, have gone 
through hundreds of changes before the 
tree absorbed them for growth. They 
may first have been made into grass, 
then eaten by cattle to make beef, then 
eaten by humans, then back to grass or 
grain, then to animals again and then in 
the form of bone to other farm crops. 
This may have gone on for ages, but 
through all these changes, the minerals 
in the ashes have maintained their 
identity. The materials that combined 
with them to form animal or vegetable 
matter have been separated to provide 
heat, or force or light; but the minerals 
remain the same and now, in the ashes 
only need an opportunity to again pass 
into combinations to form new vegetable 
matter and thus continue the rounds. 
Ashes, then, are a perfect food—a 
“ balanced ration ” for plants ? No, for 
they do not contain any of the sub¬ 
stances that will pass off with heat. 
What we call nitrogen, is the most neces¬ 
sary of all fertilizing substances; yet 
the heat of the fire drives it away in the 
form of a gas. Take the stable manure 
from feeding a ton of hay. You might 
say that manure contains all the fertility 
needed to raise another ton. You see 
how wrong that idea is when you re¬ 
member that the animals absorb about 
half the manurial elements of the hay 
in making bone, meat, hide, milk, etc. 
We would have to add that amount in 
some form to the manure in order to have 
what was required to raise another ton 
of hay. We might add this in the form 
of grain given to the cows, or we might 
add bone and wood ashes right to the 
manure pile. In like manner, to pro¬ 
duce another big tree, we must add 
something to the ashes to take the place 
of the nitrogen which was driven off by 
the fire. To put it another way, suppose 
that you burn a ton of horse manure. 
You have left about 60 pounds of ashes 
which contains the minerals in that ma¬ 
nure. You must add 10 pounds of nitro¬ 
gen in some form in order to get the fer¬ 
tilizing value of the original manure. 
Yet these 60 pounds of ashes would not 
be so valuable as the ton of manure ! Of 
course not, but not because of a lack of 
actual fertility, but for other reasons 
which will appear later. In feeding 
stock, we learned that we cannot feed a 
peck of mixed grain and obtain as good 
results as are obtained from less grain 
and lots of bulky fodder, even though 
the analysis is the same. Bulk is no less 
necessary in soils, as we shall see in good 
time. All this is to have you realize 
that ashes represent the simplest combi¬ 
nation of the indestructible minerals 
that serve as plant food. 
The three mineral substances that give 
ashes their chief value, are potash, phos¬ 
phorus and lime. When perfectly pure, 
potash and phosphorus are so strong 
and biting that they cannot be handled. 
The phosphorus on the end of an old- 
fashioned match, will quickly burn a 
hole in your finger. The “ potash ” that 
enters into plant life, is united with an¬ 
other substance, oxygen, which removes 
its burning and scalding properties when 
dissolved in water. “Phosphoric acid” 
is phosphorus united with this same 
oxygen, so that the plant can safely ab¬ 
sorb it. So these names represent the 
forms in which the two minerals are 
taken up by the plants in solution. 
(To he continued.) 
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