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
Under a good system of crop rotation with all grain sold from the
farm it is possible to return to the soil more than one-third of the
phosphorus and more than one-half of the organic matter contained in
the crops, and even as much nitrogen as all of the crops remove from
the land in the grain sold. Thus, with a four-year rotation of
wheat, corn, oats, and clover, and a catch crop of clover grown with
the wheat and turned under late the following spring for corn, we
may plow under three tons of clover containing one hundred and
twenty pounds of nitrogen, in return for the one hundred and
nineteen pounds removed from the soil for the twenty-five bushels of
wheat, fifty bushels of corn, and fifty bushels of oats. These
amounts of grain and the two bushels of clover seed might be sold
from the farm, while the two and one-half tons of straw, one and
one-half tons of stalks, and three tons of clover might be returned
to the land. These amounts aggregate seven tons of organic matter,
or the equivalent of seventeen tons of manure, measured by the
nitrogen content, or of twenty-four tons, measured by the content of
organic matter. To replace the twenty-two pounds of phosphorus sold
from the farm in the grain of these four crops would require the
expenditure of sixty-six cents at the present prices for raw
phosphate delivered at Heart-of-Egypt.
I have no doubt you will be glad to have your attention called to
the fact that the world does not live wholly, or even largely, upon
meat and milk. Bread is the staff of life, and I note from your
_World's Work _article that you prefer to have the bread made of
wheat. Thus, most farmers must raise and sell grain and vegetables.
If no independent system of live-stock farming can add a pound of
phosphorus to the one hundred and sixty pounds still remaining in
the great body of the level uplands constituting forty-one per cent.
of St. Mary county, and forty-five thousand seven hundred and
seventy acres of Prince George county, Maryland, adjoining the
District of Columbia, nor even maintain the phosphorus supply in our
good lands, then what must we do to be fed?
Manifestly, we should make large use of legume crops for the
production of farm manure or green manure; and, manifestly, America
should stop selling every year for five million dollars enough raw
phosphate for the production of more than a billion dollars' worth
of wheat. How long can we afford to give away a thousand millions
for five millions?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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