Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 54, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 March 1908 — STUDYING THE SOIL. [ARTICLE]

STUDYING THE SOIL.

The Successful Farmer Must Know Nature of His Land. .je To be successful In Its cultivation, the farmer must study his soli. If he expects to hold and increase the soil’s fertility, rendering It flt for cultivation, It is necessary that he should know of what It is made. Knowing that he can intelligently add to or subtract from the Ingredients In which it is deficient, or with which It superabounds. A fertile soil is one of apparently good texture, or peats, containing sulphate of iron, or any acid matter; and yet such a soil can be remedied by a top dressing with lime, which converts the sulphate into manure. By the application of sand or clay, says the Epitomlßt, a soil in which there is an excess of limey matter can be improved. A dressing of clay, marl or vegetable matter will likewise benefit a soil that is too abundant in sand Peat will improve light soils and peat will be improved by a dressing" of sand, though the former in the course of nature is but a temporary improvement. Soils which are loose in their texture, neither so light as to become readily dry, nor so heavy that they will get ..too wet in rainy weather, are the most fertile. The amount of nitrogen in the soil largely determines its fertility. ’l'his nitrogen is stored up only by previous generations of plants. The most fertile field can sooner or later be brought to a state of exhaustion by severe cropping, in which more nitrogen is removed from the soil in the crop than is formed and stored up in the soil during the same period.