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Show Increased Manure Supply Necessitates Increase In Waters THOMAS L. MAR TLX Agronomist B.Y.TJ. When the farmer after years of farming finds that his soil contains con-tains less organic matter, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and available nitrogen; and that the soil is tougher and harder to work; that it cracks more, and the plow does not scour, he usually becomes discouraged. dis-couraged. What can he do ? The answer is "Put the manure back and all will be well." This has been the spirit of the previous three atricles in this series. A few precautions pre-cautions need to be taken, however. how-ever. Manure on one's land if used too heavily on an acre actually results in the crop burning up. In some parts of our Western country sweet clover is grown for green manure purposes and plowed Farmers in some areas are actually actual-ly afraid to turn under an alfalfa field because the subsequent crops suffer. It has been found in some observations that after an alfalfa field has bee nplowed under, seven successive grain crops have failed, while a neighboring field with no alfalfa has resulted in a stisfactory crop of grain. Even commercial fertilizer has been used and resulted re-sulted in a crop failure, yet all that has been done has been in accord with good healthful soil fertility practices. In the West one must remember that water is not any too plentiful. plenti-ful. Extra water is needed to decompose de-compose the manures. Crops are stimulated due to this increased fertility. They grow vigorously and a larger root system develops and draws on the water. There is also a greater amount of leaf surface r qiioo uratoi 1icc tranonir. ation. Later in the season drought spells come, water turns are less frequent, and crops burn up because be-cause there is little water available avail-able during the latter part of the season and the demand is greater because of this increased fertility. Consequently, increased fertility does mean more production, but it means also that more water must be available to support that increase. If water is scarce it would be better to spread the manure over a larger area of ground. The fertility problem is a big one. It is complex. The structure of the soil, the composition of the organic matter, the amount of carbon dioxide and nitrogen present, pre-sent, the kind of animal manures used, the amount of bedding, the time of the year to apply, crops on which to apply, and many other problems indicate that the farmer's job is one of the most challenging of jobs. No ordinary man can be a farmer. It takes intelligence and it takes work. It takes shrewdness and it takes managerial ability. A farmer who is a success is a man to be admired, ad-mired, and a farmer can be a success if he will use his talents and apply the principles which have already been worked out by the many experimenters throughout through-out the country. |