The Story of the Soil; from the Basis of Absolute Science and Real LifeHopkins, Cyril G. (Cyril George)
Science
The Story of the Soil; from the Basis of Absolute Science and Real Life
Hopkins, Cyril G. (Cyril George)
Soils
Consider, for example, the common three-year rotation, corn, wheat,
and clover. A fifty-bushel crop of corn removes twelve pounds of
phosphorus from the soil; the twenty-five bushel wheat crop draws
out eight pounds; and then the two-ton crop of clover withdraws ten
pounds, making thirty pounds required for this simple rotation. The
most common type of land in St. Mary county, Maryland, after two
hundred years of farming, contains phosphorus enough in the soil for
five rotations of this simple sort. Mathematically that is all the
further traffic in rotations that soil can bear. Agriculturally that
soil has refused to bear any sort of traffic, whether single or in
rotations, and has been abandoned for farm use except where
fertilized.
These crops would remove from the soil one hundred and twenty-four
pounds of nitrogen in the corn and wheat, and the roots and stubble
of the clover would contain forty pounds of nitrogen. Now, if the
soil furnishes seventy-six pounds of nitrogen to the corn crop and
forty-eight pounds to the wheat crop, will it furnish forty pounds
to the clover crop, or as much as remains in the roots and stubble?
If so, how does the rotation actually enrich the soil in nitrogen?
You will be interested to know that there are many exact records of
the effect upon the soil of the rotation of crops. This particular
three-year rotation has been followed at the Ohio Agricultural
Experiment Station for thirteen years, and the average yield of
wheat has been, not twenty bushels, not sixteen bushels, but eleven
bushels per acre, where no plant food was applied; although where
farm manure was used the wheat yielded twenty bushels, and with
manure and fine-ground natural rock phosphate added the average
yield of wheat for the thirteen years has been more than twenty-six
bushels per acre. The corresponding yields for corn are thirty-two,
fifty-three and sixty-one bushels, and for clover they are one and
two-tenths, one and six-tenths and two and two-tenths tons of hay
per acre.
You will wish to know also that the Ohio Station has conducted a
five-year rotation of corn, oats, wheat, clover, and timothy for the
last fifteen years, both with and without the application of
commercial plant food. As an average of the fifteen years the
unfertilized and fertilized tracts have produced, respectively:
30 and 48 bushels of corn
32 and 50 bushels of oats and 27 bushels of wheat .9 and 1.6 tons of
clover
1.3 and 1.8 tons of timothy
In 1908 the unfertilized land produced nine-tenths ton of clover,
while land treated with farm manure produced three and two-tenths
tons per acre.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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