IMPORTANT TO FARMERS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XXX, Issue 8428, 19 April 1906, Page 3

IMPORTANT TO FARMERS.

How Soil is Exhausted

Milk removes from the soil nitrogen and phosphate of lime. Land in pasture containing clover always renovates itself as regards

the nitrogen, so that the phosphate is the only substance to be reckoned with. A herd of cows yielding an ordinary average of milk per head per annum removes in this way about 101b of phosphoric acid from the farm. This is equal to 501b of bonemeal or 1001b of superphosphate. It is therefore seen that a couple of tons of any phosphatic manure used per annum would make up for all the fertility removed by forty or fifty cows, whietn ordinary dairy-farming, where fair consumption of brought-in-food, and the pastures get an occasional dressing of manure, the condition of the soil is likely to be improved. As a matter of fact, one acre of wheat removes as much phosphoric acid from the soil as does one cow, while there is the loss of nitrogen as well, as is also the case with other grain crops.