The garden yard

A fertilizer is something added to the soil in order to increase the crop yield. Chemical fertilizers are very valuable when very intelligently used—but look out for them. People seem to have a great love for all sorts of complicated ways of doing things that nature will do naturally, and any one who proposes unnatural processes like vaccination, or like medicining the soil, should be required to make a very strong case for it.

Besides, you remember the story about the darkey who has been playing poker. He said: “Tell you, boys, I dun los’ a heap o’ money las’ night.”

“How much, Mose?”

“A hunnerd and eight-seben dollahs an’ fohteen cents.”

“Golly! dat wuz a heap o’ money.”

“Yas, siree, and de wust ob it wuz, de fohteen cents wuz cash.”

So it is with the boughten fertilizers. Sooner or later they have to be paid for in cash. The outgo is certain, but the income not so certain. Therefore, be sure you know just what you are doing, and why, before you buy. Of course there are times when commercial fertilizers are absolutely necessary if only to start the growth, but we should be sure what we are getting.

When we try to find out something about fertilizers, we get such technical and complicated explanations about phosphates and nitrates and other “ates,” that the ordinary amateur or beginner just takes some one’s advice; while the professionals mostly stick to what they have been doing. But the subject is clear enough if it is clearly stated.

Nitrogen and potash are about the best elements in artificial fertilizers and perhaps the hardest to retain. We have learned that nitrogen can be best and cheapest added to the soil by means of certain cover crops, or crops sown only to be turned back into the ground as green manure. It is also present in large quantities in stable manure, if it has not leached away before being put on the field. But this book could scarcely tell you all about the best ways of handling manure to get the best returns. The Government, however, has done this, in Bulletin 192, and you cannot do better than send for it and study it carefully. You will learn from it the immense importance of taking proper care of the manure you have, and how to get the best possible results from its use. Also, what sorts of manure are best for what special purposes.

If the manure is carefully handled, that which is obtained from stock fed for soiling purposes—that is, especially to provide manure—is the best. It contains almost all the elements that the growing crops took from the soil.

One well-fed dairy cow will produce 12¾ tons of manure in one year, says Prof. E. B. Vorhees, and this manure will contain about 117 pounds of nitrogen, 77 pounds of phosphoric acid, and 89 pounds of potash. This much stable manure, if all the constituents are saved by housing and careful handling, will grow about 70 bushels of wheat and the accompanying straw. As all this nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash have been drawn from the soil first in the crops fed to the cow, the only way to keep up the fertility of the soil is to return them to it. In the form of commercial fertilizers these would cost more than $30, or 20 cents per pound for nitrogen and 4½ cents per pound for potash and phosphoric acid.

So if you keep one cow and feed her well, she will return to you almost her value in manure each year, to say nothing of the milk and butter your family can have. The family horse, as well as the cow, will give you valuable returns in manure, if you know enough or care enough, to preserve it properly.

When immediate spreading on the fields is not possible, the manure, both liquid and solid, should be kept in a tight pit, or under cover. If too much litter has not been used, the liquid part will prevent loss from too rapid fermentation. But if there is litter enough to make the manure very dry, some water should be added from time to time to let fermentation go on without loss. Manure thus cared for will be ready for use on the land at any time that it is needed, and will contain practically all the necessary fertilizing properties.

A German proverb says: “The manure pile is the farmer’s bank.” All farmers these days know the value of good manures, which accounts for their buying so much commercial fertilizer, but some day they will know the value of saving the whole of the stable and barnyard manures, so as to avoid the cost of commercial fertilizers. Then there will be less of that unscientific talk of “depleted soils,” and no grumbling about “decreased yields.”

Sea-weeds, ashes, “mucks” and bones are all valuable as manures if handled properly. The Maine Agricultural Experiment Station, at Orono, Me., has published a bulletin, No. 74, on the manurial values of these, which will be sent upon application, and is well worth the reading.

The farmer should remember that commercial fertilizers are only to be used to supplement manure, not to take its place, and that when he buys any, it must be the best. He cannot afford anything else. The man who says, “I know my land needs potash, but I cannot afford to buy it,” is making a mistake. Suppose he should say “I know my children need bread, but I cannot afford to buy flour!” His neighbors would think he had gone crazy.

It is just as foolish to deny his land what it needs. He should get whatever it needs; for if a soil needs any certain ingredient, whether potash, phosphoric acid or nitrogen, it is cheap at a high price, while anything else is dear at a low price. Your soil must be fed as surely as your children must. You can get credit at the store or at the bank to buy fertilizer, when you could not get it to buy an automobile.

Potash is really one of the cheapest fertilizer elements on the market, but farmers get the idea that it is high because it is present in large quantities in all high-grade fertilizers, and almost absent from cheap grades. Just as a man’s wages cannot be estimated by the number of dollars he gets each week, but rather by the amount of the necessities of life that he can buy in return for the number of hours he has worked; so the price of fertilizer must be judged by the amount of plant food it contains, rather than by the money cost per ton. That is what makes high-grade fertilizer really cheaper than the low grades which cost less money.

For example, take the most popular of the $25 a ton fertilizer, “2-8-2.” This contains 12 per cent. of plant food, or 240 pounds to the ton, made up as follows: two per cent. nitrogen, eight per cent. phosphoric acid, and two per cent. of potash. This brings the cost of this cheap fertilizer to 10½ cents per pound of plant food to the ton. Now if the farmer bought a ton of plain muriate of potash, it would cost him $50 per ton, but he would get 50 per cent. of plant food, thus making the actual cost only five cents per pound of plant food, less than half the plant food price of “2-8-2.”

Few farmers want to buy the potash separately, and they complain that the manufacturer charges high for it in fertilizer where it is present in large quantities. But a little investigation will prove that this is not so. Take for example, the “2-8-10” grade which sells generally for $30 per ton. Here you have 20 per cent., or 400 pounds, of plant food to the ton. That brings the cost of plant food per pound to 7½ cents instead of 10½ cents as in the cheap grade. The manufacturer has added $8.00 worth of potash to the mixture and has taken out some of the worthless filler, so that the extra cost in money to you is only $5.00.

The increase in yield more than offsets that extra cost. There are still other potash fertilizers that contain no nitrogen, the lower grades selling for about $16 per ton, and the higher grades for $20 per ton. The plant food in the lower grade costs 6⅔ cents per pound and in the high grade only a tiny fraction over 5½ cents per pound. If you are spending your money for commercial fertilizers, you will find that the best is the cheapest. No matter what the mixture, if you figure it out, you will find that the high grade costs less per pound for plant food than the low grade. And it is plant food you are after, not worthless filler.

The New York Experiment Station in one of its bulletins offers the following comment on this point: “The high-grade goods sell on an average nearer to their actual plant-food value than do the low-grade goods. In general, the higher the grade of the goods, the lower the cost of each pound of plant food.”

Before you raise any crop you must know your soil, not by chemical analysis which is interesting and often helpful, but by finding out what it will grow by nature and what is the easiest way that nature can be helped; and the quicker you can find out these things the better for your prospects. The simplest and quickest method of finding out what fertilizers your soil needs to grow your crops, is by using the paraffin basket. This is a very pretty experiment and one in which you can readily interest the children so that they may get their knowledge early.

The requirements are galvanized wire netting of one-eighth inch mesh; paraffin, which can be bought cheaply at any druggist’s; and a pair of scales which will weigh accurately to one-fourth of an ounce.

Cut your netting into strips 10 inches long and 3½ inches wide; fasten the ends of strips together by hooking the end wires into the mesh or with small rivets. Then cut the wire at the bottom of the cylinder so as to make lugs about a half inch deep and bend the cut pieces under to form a partial bottom. Cut a circular piece of netting that will fit inside and drop it in, thus completing the bottom of the basket. Melt the paraffin, and while hot dip the top of the basket into it for about one inch. Draw it out, that it may cool, and dip again until a solid rim of paraffin is formed. Number each basket, as it is easier thus to keep a record of it. Place them on a tray, or in a shallow box, for greater ease in handling.

Gather the soil in small quantities from different parts of your field or garden and mix it together. If you took it from one spot it would not be representative, any more than a Congress elected entirely from one section of the country could rightly be called a House of Representatives for the American people. Divide this whole amount of soil into equal parts, having one more part than you have fertilizers to test, because you should have one basket of untreated soil to act as a check to judge results by. Eleven sorts are usually tested, which makes it necessary for you to make twelve baskets altogether.

1. Untreated soil.

2. Soil with dry manure, at the rate of five tons per acre.

3. Soil with lime, one ton per acre.

4. Soil with nitrate of soda, 200 pounds per acre.

5. Soil with sulphate of potash, 200 pounds per acre.

6. Soil with acid phosphate, 200 pounds per acre.

7. Soil with nitrate of soda and sulphate of potash, 200 pounds each per acre.

8. Soil with nitrate of soda and acid phosphate, 200 pounds each per acre.

9. Soil with sulphate of potash and acid phosphate, 200 pounds each per acre.

10. Soil with nitrate of soda, sulphate of potash, acid phosphate, 200 pounds each per acre.

11. Soil with nitrate of soda, sulphate of potash, and acid phosphate, 200 pounds each per acre, with lime, 2000 pounds per acre.

12. Soil with cowpeas, 5000 pounds per acre, with lime, 2000 pounds per acre.

It is important that the small portions of earth be fertilized in the same proportion as is here given for the field, so to 7¾ pounds of dry, finely pulverized soil, add one ounce of any one of these fertilizers. Mix very thoroughly and pass it through a sieve at least twice. This is still much too strong for use, so take one ounce of this fertilized soil and add it to five pounds more of soil, mixing and sifting as before. Then you have soil and fertilizer mixed at the rate of 200 pounds to the acre. For testing larger applications, make your first mixture with proportionally larger quantity of fertilizer.

For mixing lime with soil, take only 11½ ounces of soil to one of lime for the first mixture; for cowpea vines, four ounces of soil to one of vines, and only 1½ ounces of soil to one of manure. One ounce of each of these mixtures to five pounds of soil will give the right proportion of each to the acre, or, one ton of lime, five tons of cowpea vines, and ten tons of manure to the acre.

After you have added the fertilizers to the soil, it is left standing in pans or boxes for several days, being watered with rain water or melted ice water and frequently stirred. Do not use well or hard water, for those contain lime or salts, only rain water. Moisten the soil at the end of a few days until it is in the best condition for planting seeds. You soon learn to judge this.

Divide the soil in each pan into five equal parts and put one part in each of five wire baskets, pressing it down at the bottom and sides. After this is done, brush off the soil that has been forced through the mesh of the netting. The basket should be filled to within one-half inch from the top. The baskets are now ready for planting.

A couple of days before planting, put wheat grains between moist cloths, cover with wet sand and place in a warm spot to start germination. Take from these sprouted seeds those that are of the same size and development, and plant six in a straight line in each basket, being careful to plant all to exactly the same depth. Then cover the soil in the basket about one-fourth inch deep with clean, dry sand, dip the whole basket, down as far as the rim you have already coated with paraffin, into melted paraffin; cool, and dip again and again until it is completely covered with hardened paraffin for about one-sixteenth of an inch, and you have nearly completed your task.

See that the pots have the best possible conditions of light, temperature and moisture, as nearly as you can make it like what they would have in the field, being careful to keep all the baskets of one set together. Water them frequently. If you have weighed some of the baskets as soon as planted, you will know how much water to supply, for you must keep weight as close as possible to what it was at the beginning.

Fifteen or twenty days are enough to show you what fertilizer your soil most needs, and you can then go ahead and get it ready for crops. This is a test solely for soil needs, not for plant requirements, so it is not necessary to grow the plants any longer than just to show which basket flourishes best. It holds good in the field as well as in the basket.

One thing must be borne in mind, that weight must be accurate. If the farmer hasn’t time or patience probably his wife would make the test. She has time and patience for everything that is put upon her.