THE MOST COMPLETE OF ALL.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 743, 16 February 1910, Page 10

THE MOST COMPLETE OF ALL.

,I'ARMYABD JIANIiEES. (cv:/;. •'The value of the ordinary farmyard ;manure cannot be over-estimated:': K*t .only is it the most complete of -.all manures, containing as it. does everything essential for plant food, but'it''possesses; many other, qualities. absent.':,from artificial : manures. When properly ploughed in it makes strong landimbre friable, especially if put -on when-green,' and in- the process: of decomposition ;it adds to the humus, thus-giving the. 'soil /the'.-'power to retain ;moro moisture. Although good n)anuro ps highly, nitrbgen.ous.'/and consequently its effect is /nearly immediate, yet some of it. is so insoluble that;-years elapse.before it bccomesl'comiiletely:exhausted. '.'- : , f-'-;- . On'., this subject-an .English authority romarks: "We cannot- in . any why /.'compare farm, manure With the artificial; as we,can the 'latter with each it can for many- years .be. entirely, dispensed ..with experimental, farm's yhave proved, but it does not; by any /means follow-'that such a method is best--farm-Such experiments have been'fmost :useful in makiuc .'us fully realise;,,the value ,of artificials,"but .there probably would come a. time when the artificials would alone cease to giyo an adequate return. Because land is so poor that it will not bear a remunerative crop'that does not say that thd soil is exhausted entirely, even of available and soluble plant food. We know further that there are vast:reserves from which we'/draw year by year through the action'of the weather ; . assisted ..by., cultivation. ;/As: a rule' these reserves' have hot • been ''draijrn upon to the same extent on strong,'soil as; light, so' that on most clays we find an increase of fertility in addition to the cleanliness by dead or bastard fallows, whereas, on light soils dead fallows-are not taken partly because such land can be cleaned without and partly, because the loss in the soluble nitrates would-be greater than any gain from the pulverising, of, the soil.' The old practice ./of 'turning duifgheaps to lie as loosely-'as possible, so as to set up greater fermentation, cannot bo too strongly condemned. The 'reason giveri, that' it destroyed the weed seeds, wasia poor one, as that-effect was often gained at the loss ofilialf of tho, maturial value of the heap. / / Far better is it'not to have many weed seeds in the dung." .. | -... '