Farm Gardening with Hints on Cheap Manuring: Quick Cash Crops and How to Grow ThemAnonymous
Science
Farm Gardening with Hints on Cheap Manuring: Quick Cash Crops and How to Grow Them
Anonymous
Vegetable gardening
Hay from Tons. Pounds. Pounds. Pounds.
Red top (a grass) 2 23·0 7·2 20·4
Timothy (a grass) 2 25·2 10·6 18·0
Red Clover (a legume) 3 62·1 11·4 66·0
Alfalfa (a legume) 3 65·7 15·3 50·4
Cowpea (a legume) 3 58·5 15·6 44·1
Soja bean (a legume) 3 69·6 20·1 32·4
=Nitrogen, Phosphoric Acid, Potash.=--We have just noted the cheapest
source of nitrogen. It can be collected by root tubercles at less than
the commercial rate of 14 to 17 cents per pound.
Phosphoric acid can be best secured, if a new supply becomes
necessary, in the form of ground bone or in the form of acid
phosphate. Either of these articles, if bought from a reliable dealer,
is a good and economical thing to use.
Potash is to be had most cheaply, perhaps, in the manner suggested
heretofore: by the use of kainit as a preserver of stable manure. The
kainit performs a double purpose if used in that way, and thus gets
upon the land in a cheap manner.
Muriate of potash and sulphate of potash are high-priced articles, but
when bought from good houses are fully worth the money they cost.
Except for the use of kainit, just mentioned, the muriate or sulphate
would be the more economical form.
Potash or phosphoric acid (or both), as may be determined by
circumstances, are needed to aid crimson clover in its growth, and
with the clover form a perfect manure.
Barnyard manure is a perfect fertilizer, especially when preserved with
kainit or acid phosphate; and a leguminous crop, if stimulated with
phosphoric acid and potash, leaves the land in fine cropping condition.
=Value of Green Manures.=--The cash value of green manuring is
somewhat a matter of location. On light, sandy soils it will be found
wise to turn the whole crop under with the plow, while on heavy loams
this plan is of doubtful benefit. On the latter land it is conceded to
be better practice to harvest the crop and feed it to stock, and
return the resulting manure to the land.
=Maximum Amounts of Manures.=--Nobody has yet ventured to fix the
maximum amounts of natural or artificial manures that soils will bear,
but these amounts are great. Reference has already been made to the
number of tons of stable manure per acre used respectively by market
gardeners and farmers in America. As to commercial fertilizers, the
quantity has been pushed up to two tons per acre, with enormous crops in
consequence, and with no bad results where the constituent of the
fertilizer were well balanced and where the water-supply was ample. It
is quite easy, however, to scorch or burn the foliage of growing plants
by the improper use of acid fertilizers in dry weather. Of course, no
such amount as two tons per acre would be used in ordinary farming or
farm gardening, but only in certain intense cultural operations.
CHAPTER II.
CHOICE OF LOCATION.
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