AGRICULTURAL NEWS.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 2499, 30 August 1890, Page 7 (Supplement)

AGRICULTURAL NEWS.

n KV'V CULTIVATION OF TIIE SOIL. Among other things deep cultivation opens up the subsoil, thus permitting the more ready passage of water, and the access of air to the ! roots of plants, and in this way it deepens the soil and increases the area from which plants i can draw their food. It al, brings to the sur- : face fresh supplies ot* valuable,»mattei>, which I would remain dormant unless exposed to the i action of air, rain, "and sunshine: and it fre" queutly effects both chemical and mechanical i changes jin the cnaracter of the soil.. The general experience as to deep ploughing is, however, very conflicting ;on some lauds, it :is found to answer admirably; whilst other fields have been nearly spoiled by it for a timeOn landß where the surface and subsoils do not materially differ —such as deep clay loams and alluvial aeposits—deep ploughing may bo . practised with advantage, the effect in some cases being to bring to the surface those elements of fertility which have heretofore been bovond the reach os the plant. Deep ploughing will be attended with no benefit where the soil is wet and is not preceded by thorough drainage. Another case which will not admit of deep ploughing is where the soil is thin and the subsoil weak and gravelly.. The remedy in both cases is plain. Draining, indeed, should always be followed by deep cultivation. And. while a thin soil, with a gravelly, worthless subsoil, should not be ploughed deep for present profit, yet subsoiling and heavy j manuring will greatly increase its capacity for crops, and proportionately the value of the land.

When the subsoil, from some cause or another —generally the result of air having been long excluded from its pores—is not in a fit condition for the growth of plants, deep ploughing is positively injurious. The crude subsoil may not only need exposure to the air in order to fertilise it and render some of its dormant constituents at once available*forthe use of plants, but itmay require an addition of manure. In either ease it is not desirable to bring too much of it to the surface at a time. The deepening of such soils must be done gradually and with caution ; and in all such cases subsoiling is preferable to deep ploughing. It should be remembered that it will take double the dressing of manure to fertilise land that is ploughed to a depth of a foot than when it is ploughed Gin. : and the converse is true, that when we plough only oin. we exhaust the soil in half the time that we do when we plough lOin. deep ; but the mechanical improvement brought about by deep plougliing ana thorough pul versing gives much more and greater feeding room to the roots of the plants, and is an ad- : vantage which should be taken into account. The economical benefits arising from subsoiling and deep tillage are both numerous and important. The complete pulverisation of the . ! soil and subsoil once accomplished saves so much labour in time to come that six pairs of T _ ' horses can do what otherwise would have taken eight pairs ; less manure is required to obtain a j greater amount of produce ; deep-rooted weeds are eradicated ; all other implements designed ’ ! for the pulverisation of the soil, many of them : cumbrous and expensive, may bo dispensed with; , the grain is better filled, and ripens more j ' uniformly ; wliilo tho harvest is earlier than j before—a point of tbo utmost importance in this ■ ' variable climate of ours. ■ FERTILISERS. ’ j , If every farmer could get the truth solidly , j planted in his “ upper story” that he never made j 1 or saw a plant grow lin. or a Jin. in all the days , of his life that was not fed with the three I primal elements that make all vegetation grow ( j • —to wit, potash, nitrogen, and phosphoric acid—he might be induced to pause and consider that } the waste of these elements or plant growth kept ; money from coming into his pocket just as . certainly as the breaking of a bank would rob • him of his deposits if he has any in it. He might as well expect to make milk without feeding j his cows, or make a fire without fuel, as to exj pect crops would grow without being fed with • the above-named elements. -Aside from the i supply of them, that to a greater or less per 1 cent, is in all soils not utterly barren, the next ! source of supply within reach of the practical ! farmer i 6 from the solid and liquid excrements of animals. Strangely enough, the most of us who have led lives upon the farm have been taught to hold ! that to save the solid fertilisers and apply them , to the soil was the aim of good farming, thus 1 utterly ignoring tho more valuable liquids, ■ treating them as a nuisance, and actually built i stables to get rid of them in the quickest and ; easiest way—when the fact is, there is more of : the three prime elements of plant growth— j ! potash, phosphoric acid, and nitrogen—voided . < every day in the liquid excrements of an animal, j even of those fed liberally of well-balanced | ' rations, than the same animal voids of solids. i By way of demonstrating this truth, the New York Experiment Station analysed i separately the liquids and solids from several animals, and found there 2d. worth of potash, j phosphoric acid, and nitrogen in the solid void- ; i ingß of each animal. The price put to each of ! these elements was just what each is worth by the ton in the markets of the world, and * they would have been worth that to sell, just as standard, as a commercial product, as a barrel ; * of pork or a ton of cheese. The liquids were i ' analysed, and it was found there were of the same elements 3d. worth per day from each animal. i Nor is this all. Not from the same expen. ; ments do we learn it, but call it up lrorn ’ memory learned from other sources—the solid ■ fertilisers need the liquids to exhaustively

prepare them for assimilation as plaut tot »o that in losing the liquids, the good there i the solids is partially lost. It may not be generally known, per ha that soot is a most valuable fertilia No one who desires to imorore the condition his plants in the greenhouse, or grow go J vegetables in the garden, should throw aw the soot, or allow the chimney sweep to cart away. For using to greenhouse plants itshon be placed in a bag. then immersed in a tub water, and by applying the resultant hqa occasionally to the roots a marked improvemei will soon *be discernible, as the foliage wi assume a darker green and the plants blooi more profusely. It may also be scattered ov vegetables during showery weather iu sprin with advantage. People who have long been engaged in tfc culture of the soil can judge pretty correctly o its quality by its appearance, texture, subsoil and the character of the rocks and stones tha underlie and prevail in it. This is a knowledg which every farmer should acquire. Chloride of lime will disinfect the manurt heap if the odour therefrom is disagreeable. Tb< heap should be turned over occasionally or t will lose in value. When handling the manna dry dirt should be added.