FOL. LXII
INDIANAPOLIS, APRIL 6, 1907.
NO. 14
Some Observations  of  Fertilizers.
By Walter S. Smith.
I hare been especially requested to
say something in the Farmer, or to have
it said, about the
— Action of Salt, —
in the soil, and especially in the orchard.
On general principles salt may be depended on to arrest and hold moisture;
for it has a great affinity for water. Then
it may serve as a preservative in the
sap of the fruit-tree, and it has been as
serted that it cures the pear tree blight.
One man told me he inundated a blighted
pear tree with the salt from a fish barrel,
in order to kill it. But to his surprise,
the tree put out new shoots, and refused
to die; nor ever did it blight again. I
do not vouch for this but only state it
as told me.
Salt is good to kill some weeds, while
it helps others. And for a half grown
cabbage head it is a good stimulant, if
not put on too strong, and no remedy is
more efficacious 'for the cabbage worm
pest.
Its composition is chlorine gas and the
metal sodium. The gas is a deadly lung
poison, and while the metal is so greedy
for oxygen that it will take it away from
water, and set the hydrogen free. So
a piece as large as a grain of corn, if laid
on the moist tongue, would make a hole
in that organ. It is a chemical miracle to make a good healthful and useful
thing like salt out of two such deadly
corrosives. t
By its presence it promotes the rusting of iron and some other metals, and
that in a clay soil might aid in the retaining of ammonia.
But I want to discuss some matters in
the recent issue of the Farmer. That
was a fine issue , which had so much to
say about manure; and about all that was
said was correct. But nobody seems to
touch upon- the two chief points, the saving of the ammonia and the supply of
— Carbon —
Very much is said about nitrogen, and
one of tiie writers mentioned dioxide.
Ammonia is the source of nitrogen, and
dioxide of carbon. Dioxide is simply
carbonic  acid   gas.
Black soils and rotted manures are
rich in carbon, and the dioxide is formed by the union of the oxygen.of the air
with   the   carbon   of  the  soil. Water
absorbs it readily, and that which is set
free in the ground charges the water of
the ground to its full capacity; and in this
condition it enters tiie plant by the roots.
That which is set free is just what the
water canont absorb. It is turned
into the atmosphere, and the leaves of
all vegetables receive it by little mouths
on   the  under  side. It  is  a   very  im
portant element: for all our vegetation is
more than three-fourths carbon. The
other elements can be driven out of a
stick of wood, for instance, and enough
of the carbon retained to show the shape
of the stick in the way of charcoal. The
coal will be almost as large as the original stick. So our institute workers
and farm paper writers are sorely defective in their teaching when carbon is
omitted.
— As to Nitrogen, —
it is    volatile,    and    so little disposed to
chemical   union   with   other   bodies,   that
the problem of holding it in the soil where
it can be operative is really a very ser-
>Peach Limb Infested with San Jose Scale        Slightly   Enlarged.
118 Purdue  University.
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ious one. It is abundant in Nature, constituting much the largest part of the atmosphere; but it enters the vegetable
kingdom only in the combined form of a
chemical compound. The air is not a
chemical compound but a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen. These same two
gases chemically united make a liquid,
called Nitric Acid, or Aqua Fortis. United
with another gas, hydrogen, it makes
ammonia, or Hartshorn, and in this form,
(ammonia), it enters vegetable bodies by
way of the roots.
Here is a little from Dr. R. T. Brown's
lectures ou nitrogen, as I have them recorded in my book of notes:
S "The quality of the soil determines the
amount of this substance,    and right here
is where ignorance is the farmer's greatest enemy.        There is an enormous   and
shameful waste of the material for gluten
by the escape of ammonia from decaying
substances.      For example:    A dead dog,
whose  presence  on    tiie  surface    of  the
ground  is  a  source  of  offensive effluvia,
would  saturate  a  ton of    soil  with  ammonia if covered  up.        We might with
very  little difficulty  save  decaying    substances,    and thus better our soil and improve the quality as well as increase the
quanity of our products."
The quantity of nitrogen in our vegetable foods is small: 4 per cent in- wheat,
2 per cent in corn, and less than 1 in potatoes; and, yet, these small proportions
are indispensable. Liebig estimated the
value of these crops by its presence.
Wheat he regarded as a standard, at a
dollar; corn, 50 cents, and potatoes 25,—
all things being equal; that is, all crops
average.
Now what I wanted to say in the" wny
of objection to the professor's excellent
paper that appeared in the Farmer of
February 9, is that he endorses this
shameful waste by advising farmers to
haul out their manufe as fast as it is
made.
— The Ammonia Escapes —
in the air when set free on the ground,
and it should not be allowed to lie there
a single day before it is buried by the
plow. The ammonia of a load of
manure is worth at least twice as
much the day it is scattered
as it is a week later. And I hope institute workers will quit encouraging this
waste.
Of course it may be answered that the
waste goes on from the heap, as decay is
increased there by tue heat, but all that
rising cloud, so loaded with the volatile
substance, Bhould be stopped from escaping. Arrest it on the spot. A good
cart-load of swamp muck, or a better,
one of yellow clay o_ top of the manure
heap will do the work; and the rotting
may go right forward. Nor is it necessary to have it sheltered. Let it have
the rain; for that is Nature's aid to oxy-
dation.
There is another reason for holding
back the day of scattering the manure. A
coat of gi'een manure on the ground prevents the evaporation- of the moisture, and
the ground will be too wet for plowing
mnch longer. It is a little inconvenient
to haul manure at plowing time: but it is
also inconvenient to harrow and roll and
harrow again- at seeding time. We do
this preparatory work because it pays.
So would the other inconvenience pay.
This, of course means three-fourths of
the chemical elements. The large proportion i of water in vegetable substances is
not here considered.