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PLANT FOOD ELEMENTS Nitrogen and the Way In Which It Is Absorbed. STATE CHEMIST’S LETTER NO. 4 ___ Actual Quantities of Plant Food In Soils—What Dstermlncs the Crop Producing Power of the Soil, Etc. Interesting and Instructive Treatise. Naturally the nitrogen we find in the plant by analysis next claims our at tent ion. Ab 1 told you in my last let¬ ter that there are nearly eighty gafi Ions of nitrogen in one hundred Ions of air. you would quite naturally exclaim that then would be no need to bother about providing nitrogen fot the crops, as they ought to be able to obtain all they want from the encr mous oceans of it floating all around and about them. Yes, one would natur¬ ally suppose so. but alas. It is not true; the plan^ is helpless to feed on the ni trogen around it in the air, no mat¬ ter how thirtsy it may be for It. It is like the shipwrecked sailor in the open boat at sea, though parched and dying with thirst, yet he can not slake hid thirst, though there be nothing but water,'water, all about him. It seems as though there were a cer¬ tain malice in Nature in so constitut¬ ing plants that, they cannot take the nitrogen out of the air directly, yet perhaps it is a good thing they cannot, because if they could, life would he so easy that w*e probably would not exert ourslves as much as we should, Ni trogen being the most expensive ele¬ ment of plant food, if It were provided free of cost like the carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, w-e could grow such enor mous crops at such small cost., that the cost of living would be so reduced, that a man would not have the same urgent stimulus behind him to work and tc labor that he now has. The Form In Which Plants Absorb Nitrogen. But to return to our subject, the plant, requires nitrogen, but it cannot take it. through its leaves; it has to take it up through its roots, and In or¬ der for the roots to take it up, the ni trogent must be combined with nitrate, It must he in the form of nitrate of goda. or nitrate of lime, or nitrate of m»g r.esia. or nitrate of potash, or some other form of nitrate before the plant can utilize it. If we put any organ¬ ic matter containing nitrogen into the soil, either vegetable or animal, as cot¬ ton seed meal, blood, meat, or even if we plow under green crops, they will begin to decay and petrify in the soil, j until (lie nitrogen which they con¬ tain in the form of protein (about which I wrote you so much last year) is changed into a number of other forms, being finally converted into a nitrate otter the decay of the ooriginal sustaiK-e hue been fully completed. As a nitrate it is in a condition where it dissolves easily in water, and is then absorbed by the root hairs and drawn up into the circulation of the plant. Now the vast majority oi plants have to obtain their nitrogen in the roundabout manner just describ¬ ed, but there are few favored plants which are able to obtain their nitrogen out of the air through the instrumen¬ tality of certain minute organisms or microbes in the soil. We will have more to say of this later on. When the organic matters 1 have described above, animal or vegetable, as cotton seed meal, blood meat, manure or turned under green crops decay in thk soil, the carbon and hydrogen which are contained in them are not ab sorbed like the nitrogen through the roots into the plant, the plant does not get its supply of carbon and hy drogen in that way. They simply re main in the soil to form what is known as the humus of the soil, or the de caved orgauic matter of the soli, which improves its mechanical., condition, gives It a dark or black aolor, and serves as an excellent retainer of moisture and heat in the soil. Refer ring now to the analysis of a rich soil, which 1 gave you in my last letter. w« find that besides the organic subj stance about which we have just been talking, there are also the inorganic or mineral substances, such as we found In the ashes of the plant we first analyzed. The Various Elements Found In ths Soil. The most abundant substance of all those mineral or ash elements in the soil we find to be silica, or as you are quatated with it, sand. You will re» member there was in this particular rich soil 71.55 pounds of silica ont of every 100 pounds, and yet the wheat plant grown on this soil only contained two and three-quarters pounds of sill ca out of every 100 pounds, and even this was not absolutely essential to the health and growth of the plant, .Although we find alumina in the we find none in the plaint. AJumnle ’.5 of the principal elements of a THE WEEKLY BANNER. ic acid found m tne sou ure riKewiae found in the ash of the plant. Only small quantities of these however are required by the plant and they are al ways abundant in soils. Soda is like wise found in both soil and plant, but is not essential to the plant. Phosphor ie acid, potash ami lime are found in only small quantifies in most soils, but exist in considerable quantity in the ash of the plants, and each one 0 f them j 5 absolutely necessary to the life, growth and development of the plant. For this reason, the other ‘XT lc acid, lime and nitrogen. Potash and phosphoric acid are usually contained in soils fn small varying from about one-tenth of a pound In a hundred pounds of the soil to one pound In one hundred pounds. Although that amount looks small: let ns figure it by the-acre, Weight of the Soil Per Acre. An avereage soil, when dry. if taken to the depth of nine inches, will weigh tllree to throe and one-half mil¬ lion pounds to the acre. Therefore a soil containing one-tenth of one per cent of phosphoric acid, would really contain three thousand to thirty-five hundred pounds of phosphoric acid per acre, or as much as could be obtained by the application of ten to twelve tons of high-grade acid phosphate per acre. You would at once then say that a soil containing one-tenth per cent of pot¬ ash or phosphoric* acid ought to be a rich soil and should not require any fertilizers, but there you would be wrong, because it matters not so much what is the total amount of potash or phosphonjc acid in an acre of soil as it does to know in what condition that phosphoric acid or potash exists. Availability of the Plant-Food in the Soil. The question arises, is it soluble, is It availably? It is in such condition that the soil water can take it up and convey it to the roots and root hairs o? the plant, ready for absorption by them into the plant-circulation? That is why we find it necessary to put acid phosphate and kainlt and other fertilizers on lands which are being constantly cropped; it is because the constant cropping has exhausted or drawn out of the soil the soluble phos¬ phoric acid and potash, available to the plant, and we must either put on a fertilizer containing them in a aolft ble form, or we must let the soil rest a while, that is "lie fallow-.” in order that a fresh supply of plant food may be made available by the slow action of the soil water, the action of car¬ bonic acid, and the other organio acids resulting from the decay of vegetable and animal matters fn the soil. If you cannot afford to either put on fer¬ tilizer or to let your land ‘‘lie fallow;” then your next resource is to rotate your crop; that is, to plant on the soil which has begun to fail you some other crop of a different nature, which may not require so much of a certain element of plant food as the previous crop did. For instance, follow cotton with peas or clover. What Determines the Crop-Producing Power of the Soil. In considering the capacity of a soil to produce crops we must remem¬ ber one thing, and that is that the es¬ sential element which exists in the smallest amount settles the qustion of th crop-producing powr of a soil. That is to say. it a soil is vry rich in avail able phosphoric acid, nitrogen, lime, magnesia, and the other essential ash elements, and yet be poor in available polash, that soil cannot produce heavy crops without the application of an available potash fertilizer. If that soil has only available potash enough in it to produce ten bushels of corn per acre, or two hundred pounds of seed cotton per acre, then all you are going to get out of that soli is ten bushels of corn, or tw-o hundred pounds of seed cotton, no matter whether was available phosphoric acid and trogen and lime, etc., in the soil enough to produce forty bushels of corn or fifteen hundred pounds of seed cotton. This brings us to the question of soil analysis, which we will treat in our next letter, JOHN M. McCANDLESS. Beef and Dairy Cattle. For many years the Georgians have given much attention to the improve¬ ment of the stock of dairy cattle, and all over the northern and middle sec¬ tions and iu some of the southern counties are many first-clas dairy farms stocked with cattle of the best known milk breeds, It has been the effort of the depart ment of agriculture to encourage this good work in every wav, and at the same time to present to our farmers every incentive to the improvement of our beef cattle, and the newspa pers ami agricultural journals of the state have nobly backed up all these efforts. j Our most enterprieing farmers no v es,^i;hg ya wr,cribs and smeke l N THOSE WHO TRADE WITH US WILL TESTIFY T(1 THE FACT THAT WE SAVE THEM MONEY % i ON EVERY PURCHASE AT OUR STORE Mi 9 Ifi tfi 1 i A fcfS a|i| t J? Hit i©®fi$i|i splint if Besides a full line of Patent Medicines*, Drugs, Toilet Articles and Sundries, you will tind we are headquarters for jfimnU, Yabni&heS, 0iU, Window- BhiM, School Books and Stationery a Specialty, We invite you to call on us when in need of anything in the Drug Line.* We give you BEST goods and prices The Gaitev Drug i It is time now that we were having our great packing houses in our own cities, supplied with the best of beef from our own stock yards. There is al ready in the suburbs of Atlanta the packing house of T. R, Sawtell; an other in Brooks county and others in other sections of the state. The great scarcity of beef from the cattle states of the Union and the consequent high prices ought to wake up our people to the grand opportunity of cheapening this important article of diet and keep¬ ing in our own state the money that now goes beyond our borders. Not only clover, alfalfa (or lucerne) and other grasses of the northern, mid¬ dle and western sections of the Union flourish In many parts of Georgia, but our own native grasses and our soil enriching pea vines in every section of the state give abundance of the best hay and supply the finest pasturage for stock. The prosperity of our state will lie greatly increased by the establishment of great stock farms, not only by the consequent cheapening of our meat supplies, but also by the wonderful en ricliing of the soil, wherever herds of cattle are kept. GA. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE. Filthy Tenqples In India • Sacred cows often defile Iudiau temples, but worse yet is a body that’s polluted by constipation. Don’t permit it. Cleanse your sys¬ tem with Dr. King’s New Life Pills and avoid untold misery. They give lively livers, active bowels, good digestion, fiue appetite. Only 25c at Galley Drug Co. Tax Receiver’s Notice. The tax books are now opeu for re¬ ceiving tax returns for the year 1902, and I will be at the different, precincts at the times named below: tfkpflield, Apr. 2S, May 10, June 6. Lorraine “ 24, “ 28, “ 18 Honey U. “ 25, “ 80, “ 20. Remainder of time at J. J. Langford & Sou’s store, in Conyers. G. H. Hull, T. R. Bears tha Tl» Kind Yw Haw Always Bo^R Bigaatar* till* and Healers in Building Material' All kinds of Lumber, S.hingLs, Laths, Lime, Cement, Brick etc., fit lowest prices. Can fill orders prompt¬ materia ly and will be glad to furnish ior all repair work and building. Wm make prices a? low as possible, and try to please all customers. calL Give us a WALLACE & STILL- / \ f ■ Lcng n .‘V service, least cost / J3 -»oA\ T \ VY; for repairs, m KgS? Wf 5o-kiCh- D ' IpY case of ercc- \! V f stales for W/ tion (simply 1 V. stretch and staple ft it) high grade steel / at a low price—that's r * what makes it long, and protects crop*- * The Fence of Economy The Ail’Round Fence Examine the the Ellwood YoucansecanEUwoodFef pad ^J; way L in use in any; i Fence is woven. The eye country, almc J*." ‘ - / A of a practical man will /, , neighborhood. dealer handbag i a everywhere im see at a glance why / J t them jhoula i j»\ it stands strains— j Bk If yours them, i \ /iiisp act fcwi never saps. write to buckles, pulls t S,H ' 1 k\ \ incUilr.-tu-i Ihifjro. / / out porta or / Srw V<rk. /, breads. / >1