Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1869 — Farm and Household. [ARTICLE]

Farm and Household.

. - The failure to raise good crops of wheat npon land long cultivated to not so often attributable to Indifferent seed aa to unfair cultivation. In most esses the soil has been robbed of the wheat producing properties, such as the phosphates, potash and other salts. Thto to true in a large degree of tbs wheat growing sections of the older States, where the soil has been so long drained of its substance that it is no longer possible to raise a heavy crop of wheat in the best season. On such lands farmers should apply bone dost, or soluble bone dust, or bone super phosphates and ashes to restore the potash. Lime should be used to gather carbonic add Lime deposited in large piles will collect carbonic acid from the air and beoome a better fertilizer. Lime should be applied with grass or other vegetable matter, upon which It acts chemically and produces plant food. It also corrects the sour acids in the soiL Borne fields need sulphuric add, which is supplied by sowing plaster Sown upon clover, plaster causes it to draw to it the ammonia from the air and water, and if the dover be plowed down when in full bloom and quick lime be used the clover to converted into plant food. The best fertilizer in the experience of the writer Is a compost of mack, barnyard manure and c]py, thoroughly decomposed and mixed with equal parte of lime, ashes, salt, plaster and bone phoapate. No soil except a virgin soil will fail to produce wheat with thto compound. It ahould be thoroughly mixed and screened, so that it can be drilled in with the wheat It should bo used in the fall, when the rain helps to decompose it and to enrich the surrounding soil, and when the grain roots are ready to take up the parts most needed for food for the wheat plant Plant roots do not permeate manures and take them hp until they are decomposed by the action of the moisture, and in times of great drought manures yield very little nourishment When the moisture penetrates the soil the roots of plants search for nourishment, and if the soil be loose they can penetrate the particles and gather it Vegetable manures contain a very small proportion of salts, and these must be supplied if the farmer wiahea to enrich the soil and raise large crops of grain.— Farm Journal.