si^&asz 
Vol. LXXVII. 
Published Weekly by The Rural Publishing Co., 
3.^3 W. 30th St., New York. Price One Dollar a Year. 
NI']W YORK, DECEMBER 14, 1918. 
Entered as Second-Class Matter, .Tune 26, 1S79. at the Post -v- i.rio 
Office at New York, N. Y.. under the Act of JIarch 3, l.S7!>. .,>0. — 
Brimstone for the Land’s Sake 
The Alfalfa-Sulphur Clubs of Oregon 
[We recently mentioned the sulphur clubs formed in 
Oregon to obtain sulphur for u.se in Alfalfa fields. Out 
in that country they have found that sulphur, used as 
,a fertilizer, gives great results in certain crops. In the 
lollowing article I’rof. W. L. Powers of the Oregon 
E-Kperiment Station gives further details about it.] 
R esults of new analyses.— investigators 
have generally agreed that the chemical eleiiient.s 
in which soils are usually deficient are potassium, 
nitrogen and phosphorus. In addition calcium is 
often needed in carbonate form to correct acidity. 
The most e.xtensive and elaborate fertilizer experi- 
contain 20 pounds of sulphur in a ton. Hart and 
I'eterson of the Wiscon.siu Experiment Station found 
sulphur removed by average crops of cereals to be 
about two-thirds of the phosphorus removed by these 
crops. One hundred average crops of barley would 
require as much sulphur as is contained in the sur¬ 
face eight inches of an average soil. 
CROP VARIATIONS.—Crops such as cabbage and 
turnips removed two or three times as much sulphur 
as phosphorus. They also found that soils cropped 
50 to (10 years, unmanured, lost ou the average 40 
per cent of the sulphur originally present as com¬ 
pared to virgin soil. They calculated that the 
amount of suli)hur lost in drainage w’ater would 
sulphate were higher than those treated with fer¬ 
tilizers containing iio STilphur. Sulphur is used by 
the plant in the sulphate state, and Dr. Brown of 
the Iowa Station has shown that different groui)s 
of bacteria are associated with sulfofication or the 
changing of sulphur to available form. Similar 
stmlies have been made at the New .Jersey Experi¬ 
ment Station. It is suggested by the writer that the 
increased bacterial activity and perhaps increased 
nitiaficatiou ni;iy be a chief bemdit from sulphur 
fertilization. 
OREGON EXPERIMENTS.—In 1912 Dr. Reimer, 
working with acid i)hosphate and calcium sulphate 
on the Southern Oregon branch exi)eriment station, 
Cultivatiiif/ the Poultry Crop. It Pays to “Malce Friends” With the Farm Live Stoclc. Fig. 6If8 
meats have been worked out on this basis, and the 
fertilizer business has developed to supply these 
elements. Sulphur has long been regarded as essen¬ 
tial to plant growth, but the small amount formerly 
found in i)lant ash did not indicate that it was apt 
to be a critical or limiting element in crop produc¬ 
tion. During recent years, however, improved 
methods of analysis have shown that plants contain 
much more sulphur than early analyses indicated. 
New methods of analysis have shown that Alfalfa 
uses far more sulphur than formerly indicated. The 
average crop of five tons removes 35 pounds of sul¬ 
phur from one acre, whereas only 25 pounds of 
pho.sphorus would be contained in five tons of 
Alfalfa. On the new basis rape has been found to 
exceed the amount brought in from the atmosphere 
by rain. These facts led to renewed interest in sul¬ 
phur content of soils, and a thorough study of the 
sulphur content of Kentucky so'il areas made by 
Shedd shows that the soils of that State usually 
contain less sulphur than phosphorus, and that many 
staple crops responded to treatment with sulphur 
and sulphate. People have often applied sulphur to 
soil unknowingly in manure, potassium sulphate, 
ammonium sulphate, acid phosphate, and calcium 
sulphate for years. 
CROP RESULTS.—A study of 20 yeans’ results 
with fertilizer trials at the Ohio Experiment Station 
shows that the average yield from plants treated 
with acid phosphate, potassium sulphate or ammonia 
found that increase in crop yield secured by these 
fertilizers could be produced by the use of elemental 
.sulphur aijd was probably due to sulphate contained. 
The writer, working independently in Deschutes 
^"alley, Oregon, the same season, found that calcium 
sulphate, potassium sulphate and acid phosphate 
gave substantial increases in yields over untreated 
plots or plots treated with potassium chloride. This 
led to trials with elemental sulphur, which was 
found to give even more marked increase in crop 
yield. During the following years extensive trials 
have shown an average increase in Deschutes Valley 
oE about one and one-fourth tons an acre from appli¬ 
cation of sulphur in sulphate. In some experiments 
a gain of two and even three tons more Alfalfa has 
