1 Ocr., 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 365 
Agriculture. 
FIRST STEPS IN AGRICULTURE. 
FIRST STAGE. 
10ri Lesson. 
By A.J.B. 
T will close this little book with an easy lesson on manuring the land. 
You have seen how lands may be exhausted by constant cropping, which 
removes quantities of the elements necessary for the growth of the crops and 
the production of their fruits. This exhaustion is overeome in several ways, 
and [ have just mentioned some of them to prepare you for a fuller description 
of them in the next two primers. Thus, drainage, as you have seen, assists 
fertility by removing the cold stagnant water beneath the roots of the plants, 
by enabling the air to get into, the soil, and by the roots finding their way 
deeper down, and so getting at the plant food which, before draining, was out 
of their reach. ; 
Constant cultivation or stirring of the soil with plough, harrow, and hoe 
is also of great advantage to the crops. Poor land, badly cultivated, will never 
yield good crops, but even poor land, if thoroughly worked and constantly 
cultivated, may be made to produce very fair crops. 
But in this place I want to tell you about manuring the land. There is a 
great variety of manures, but the good old-fashioned farmyard manure is what 
we will talk about now. We will suppose that you have a farm which, for a 
few years, has given heavy crops of wheat, potatoes, corn, sugar-cane, or 
arrowroot. By and by, you begin to notice that the plants do not look so large 
or so deep-green and healthy as formerly. The potato haulms have a 
yellowish look, the corn tassels long before it has reached its usual height, the 
wheat is straggly, the sugar-cane spindly, and the arrowroot bulbs are small 
and few. : 
You begin to see that something is wrong, and, as you have learnt how to 
tell the condition of your soil by the appearance of the crops, you come to the 
conclusion that it wants manuring. Now, some people would go to the 
merchant and buy a quantity of what are called “ artificial” manures, because 
they haye seen good crops got from poor land by their use. But this is unwise, 
unless you know exactly what plant food has been taken out of the soil. You 
may as well learn here that with the dark humus the soil contains porasn, 
PHOSPHORIC ACID, NITROGEN (in the humus), salé, cron, lime, and other matters. 
If these have all been taken out of the soil, they can be replaced by the use of 
natural manure, such as farmyard manure, or by the use of artificial manures 
containing those elements. But how are you to know which of all these 
ingredients is wanting in the soil? You cannot tell by looking at it, and you 
may waste a great deal of money by buying a ‘fertiliser’ which contains the 
very element the soil does not ask for. So you must go to someone who can tell 
you. That someone isa chemist. I do not mean the chemist who sells you 
medicine and pulls out your teeth, but whatis called an agricultural chemist. 
His business is to find out all the things that go to make up every part of a. 
lant. He ean tell you exactly what makes the root, the stem, the leaves, the 
uit, and what particular plant food each part requires. He makes what is 
called an “analysis” of the plant, or fruit, or grain. Just remember that word 
“analysis,” because I shall have occasion to use it very often as you progress. I 
will, however, show you what is meant by it, but you need not trouble to learn 
the figures set down, as we have not gone far enough on our journey for you to 
be able to make any use of them. 
