Experiments with Manures

Feilding Star, Volume XIX, Issue 102, 27 October 1897, Page 4

Experiments with Manures

The experiments carried out at Lord Rosebery's estate, Dalmeny Park, have, it is said, placed beyond doubt the fact that tnrnips growß either with nitrate of soda or nitrate of potash are not bo sound, and do not in any single case possess the keeping qualities of those grown with sulphate of ammonia. These facts are becoming known to Scottish dairymen, who are the principal buyers of feeding stuffs grown near cities ; and some of those farmers who are known to b« users of sulphate have this year been aßked to sell their turnips before they were even sown. Mr John Hunter, the county analyst for Midlothian, under whose supervision the experiments at D^lmeny Park are carried out. has laid down this doctrine that a soil to be fertile must be eerm occupied, That is, a sterile soil is an unfertile soil. He says that the manures, etc., applied to soils which were previously supposed to directly nourish the plants, are in reality tbo foods and breeding necessaries for soil organisms, and it is these bacterial bodies which convert the added materials into soluble and useful coui> pounds for plant absorption. Ho further says that nitrate of soda is not of any service to any organism, bat being soluble and diffusible it goes into the plant unchanged, with the result that crops are produced with lower albumin* oid ratio, with less solid residue — i.e., with more water, of course, and of poorkeeping quality. Sulphate of ammonia, on the other hand, nndergoes nutrification in the soil, and into calcium nitrate — nitrate of lime — which is soluble and diffusible.