March, 1913 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
173 
your garden depends on the amount of moisture in the soil. 
As all plant foods must be in a soluble form in order to be 
available for plant use, there must be plenty of water to dissolve 
the food and carry it up into the plant. Without sufficient 
moisture in the soil, even though it is crammed full of plant 
food, and even though this plant food is in the most available 
forms, the crops will prove a 
partial or a total failure. This 
is a fact the importance of 
which all agriculturists have 
not yet fully realized. They 
have insisted upon the neces¬ 
sity of maintaining the “soil 
mulch,” in order to “conserve” 
the moisture in the soil, thus 
preventing crop failures. But 
they have not recognized the 
still more vital problem of sup¬ 
plying water to the soil by 
artificial means, when, as is 
very generally the case, the 
season’s rain-fall is insufficient 
to produce one hundred per 
cent, crops. It is often im¬ 
possible to get good results 
without irrigation, and this 
matter, in which such great 
improvements have been made 
in the last few years, is of 
such importance, that it will be 
taken up more fully in a suc¬ 
ceeding article, for it ought to be understood by every gardener. 
Many people still believe that all one has to do to become a 
prosperous, up-to-date and scientific farmer, is to go out with a 
few hundred dollars and 
buy a run-down New Eng¬ 
land hillside, send a few 
shoe-box-fulls of surface 
soil to the nearest State 
Experiment Station, to 
analyze it and tell exactly 
what it contains, purchase 
the necessary number of 
pounds of various agri¬ 
cultural chemicals to make 
up what the soil is found 
to lack—and then grow as 
big crops as can be grown 
anywhere. This theory 
was the result of the first 
scientific investigations of 
the chemists in the field of 
agriculture, when it was 
held that the soil contains 
within itself some availa¬ 
ble plant food; that crop 
chemical analysis would 
determine the exact 
amount of the nitrogen, 
phosphoric acid and 
potash necessary. Then 
we should add to the available plant foods already in the soil, 
just enough more to make the resulting amount equal to the 
quantities of the various elements used by the crop. Or, in other 
words, available plant food elements in the soil—plus—available 
chemical food elements supplied in fertilizers are equivalent to 
the amounts of food elements found in matured crops. 
The discoverers of this pretty theory imagined that agriculture 
would be revolutionized—reduced to an exact science; and that 
all former theories of husbandry and tillage would be thrown by 
the heels together on the scrap heap. They imagined that science 
had solved at one fell swoop all the world-old problems of agri¬ 
culture. There was only one thing the matter with this theory — 
it did not work! The un¬ 
welcome but obdurate fact re¬ 
mained that a certain number 
of pounds of nitrogen, phos¬ 
phoric acid and potash — about 
thirty-three in a ton of good 
manure—-would grow bigger 
crops than would the same 
number of pounds of the same 
elements in a bag or two of 
chemical fertilizers. But while 
this theory failed as the basis 
of an exact agricultural 
science, it was a very big step 
in the right direction. 
As a solution of the prob¬ 
lem, however, it was too sim¬ 
ple. It did not take all of the 
facts in the case into account. 
It was found, for instance, 
that adding lime or land- 
plaster — materials that had 
practically no plant food in 
them at all — to certain crops, 
would produce vastly in¬ 
creased yields. This was found to be due to the fact that while 
such materials as lime did not add any actual plant food to the 
soil, they did serve the purpose of converting plant food already 
in the soil, but in un¬ 
available form, into forms 
that the plant could make 
use of — to open the cans 
of food which had been 
present, but sealed chem¬ 
ically, in such forms that 
the plant rootlets could 
not acquire it. 
Furthermore it was 
found that these things 
had a decided effect upon 
the physical condition of 
the soil: that they had the 
paradoxical property of 
loosening up heavy soils 
so that water could drain 
through them more readi¬ 
ly ; and of binding to¬ 
gether light, sandy soils, 
making them more amen¬ 
able to cultivation. The 
physical condition of the 
soil, in fact, affects the 
growth of crops very ma¬ 
terially, in several ways. 
In the first place, while 
plants must have water, too much is just as harmful as too little. 
The soil should be in such a condition, therefore, that any surplus 
of water will drain through it readily. In the second place, the 
leading root systems of plants must have air, but not too much; 
without it they will actually smother, and with too much the 
(Continued on page 222) 
Good results are won by mixing your own fertilizer. Break the chemicals 
with a mallet and mix thoroughly 
Here is a soil worked up correctly for absorbing moisture. See how light foot¬ 
prints are sunk in its flaky softness 
