Talks on Manures | Page 7

Possibly this practice may result in loss, though I do not think so.
A good summer-fallow, on rather heavy clay land, if the conditions are otherwise favorable, is pretty sure to give us a good crop of wheat, and a good crop of clover and grass afterwards. Of course, a farmer who has nice, clean sandy soil, will not think of summer-fallowing it. Such soils are easily worked, and it is not a difficult matter to keep them clean without summer-fallowing. Such soils, however, seldom contain a large store of unavailable plant food, and instead of summer-fallowing, we had better manure. On such soils artificial manures are often very profitable, though barn-yard manure, or the droppings of animals feeding on the land, should be the prime basis of all attempts to maintain, or increase, the productiveness of such soils.
Since this book was first published, I do not know of any new facts in regard to the important question of, how best to manage and apply our barn-yard manure, so as to make it more immediately active and available. It is unquestionably true, that the same amount of nitrogen in barn-yard manure, will not produce so great an effect as its theoretical value would indicate. There can be no doubt, however, that the better we feed our animals, and the more carefully we save the liquids, the more valuable and active will be the manure.
The conversion of the inert nitrogen of manures and soils, into nitric acid, as already stated, is now known to be produced by a minute fungus. I hope it will be found that we can introduce this bacterium into our manure piles, in such a way as to greatly aid the conversion of inert nitrogen into nitrates.
Experiments have been made, and are still continued, at Woburn, under the auspices of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, to ascertain, among other things, whether manure from sheep receiving an allowance of cotton-seed cake is any richer than that from sheep, otherwise fed alike, but having, instead of cotton-seed cake, the same amount of corn meal. We know that such manure contains more nitrogen, and other plant food, than that from the corn meal. But the experiments so far, though they have been continued for several years, do not show any striking superiority of the manure from cotton-seed cake over that from corn meal. I saw the wheat on these differently manured plots in 1879. Dr. Voelcker and Dr. Gilbert, told me that, one of two plots was dressed with the cotton-seed manure, and the other with the corn meal manure, and they wanted me to say which was the most promising crop. I believe the one I said was the better, was the cotton-seed plot. But the difference was very slight. The truth is that such experiments must be continued for many years before they will prove anything. As I said before, we know that the manure from the cotton-seed cake is richer in nitrogen than that from the corn meal; but we also know that this nitrogen will not produce so great an effect, as a much smaller amount of nitrogen in salts of ammonia, or nitrate of soda.
In going over these experiments, I was struck with the healthy and vigorous appearance of one of the plots of wheat, and asked how it was manured. Dr. Voelcker called out, "clover, Mr. Harris, clover." In England, as in America, it requires very little observation and experience to convince any one of the value of clover. After what I have said, and what the Deacon, the Doctor, Charley and the Squire have said, in the pages of this book, I hope no one will think that I do not appreciate the great value of red clover as a means of enriching our land. Dr. Voelcker evidently thought I was skeptical on this point. I am not. I have great faith in the benefits to be derived from the growth of clover. But I do not think it originates fertility; it does not get nitrogen from the atmosphere. Or at any rate, we have no evidence of it. The facts are all the other way. We have discussed this question at considerable length in the pages of this book, and it is not necessary to say more on the subject. I would, however, particularly urge farmers, especially those who are using phosphates freely, to grow as much clover as possible, and feed it out on the farm, or plow it under for manure.
The question is frequently asked, whether the use of phosphates will ultimately impoverish our farms. It may, or it may not. It depends on our general management. Theoretically, the use of a manure furnishing only one element of plant food, if it increases the growth of crops which are sold