KNOW THY SOIL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19532, 13 March 1926, Page 9 (Supplement)

KNOW THY SOIL

A FARMEE’S RESPONSIBILITY. IGNORANCE ’ 'T BLISS. Should the common farmer bo a well posted man concerning the character of his soil and how to manage, it? If so, then he ought certainly to improve every opportunity to understand what is known about, soils. How many farmers of the land make any special study of the soil question? Not one in a hundred. All the study they make is what comes to them in a fugitive way. Would the farmers have wasted fertility, as they have, done all over the land, if they had been real students of the soil? Of course. Would they keep on in the same old rut of destroying fertility as they are doing if they were goou students of the soil? Of course not. Why do they not become such students? Because they will not read concerning the soil. They will not become students in the true sense of the term. They thi k they know all they can or need to know without books and papers. No farmer can know what he ought to know of the soil without becoming somewhat familiar with tin? chemistry of soils. Ho must know how chemistry defines the elements of fertility. He must understand what the chemical terms mean when applied to the (dements of fort i lily. He must know the meaning of humus, what, it does, ami what it is good for, and how it may be produced. He must know the meaning of nitrogen, what its office is, and how it may be preserved, produced, and applied. He must kiuw in like manner the meaning of phosphoric acid and potash. If he does not understand something about these elements, he is as weak as a child whenever he meets them in print. H< cannot tell what the words are talking about. Now that is just where thousands farmers are. They have never been

given sufficient education to understand the full meaning of the words used in farm literature, and consequently they don’t read papers and books that treat upon the things of their life work. It is just this ignorance of vital questions that has caused the waste of fertility of whole States. There is only one remedy for this trouble. The farmer must educate himself to understand the meaning of scientific terms as they are used in farm literature. When he does that, farm literature will have a new and broader meaning to him and it will help him Io retrieve his wasted fortune.