VALUE OF MANURES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4883, 28 September 1925, Page 3

VALUE OF MANURES.

QUICK-ACTING DRESSINGS. POINTS TO REMEMBER. The value of a fertiliser does not depend, especially when applied in spring, on its total percentage of nitrogen. phosphate of lime, and potash, but upon the percentage of thofse constituents that the growing crop can utilise. This is a point that farmers should keep in view when considering the purchase of fertilisers. A fertiliser which could be wisely applied in autumn might be unsuitable for spring application. There are some substances that contain a high percentage of one bathe other fertilising constituents, but the constituents are in a comparatively inert form ; they afford little or no nourishment to the young crop ; in fact, they may “analyse well,” but are bad fertilisers ; the plant may be starving for suitable nourishment, but gets, if not exactly a stone, something which it cannot use. LASTING EFFECT. The effect of a dressing of farmyard manure lasts throughout the rotation, but with the modern system of intensive cultivation fertilisers supplementing the bulky manure are applied to be utilised by teh one crop generally, not with the object of permanently enriching the land. Applications of nitrate of soda, sulphate of ammonia, superphosphate, concentrated potash salts, which are the fertilisers most largely used in spring, if not used up by the crop will be subject either to total or partial waste before the next season comes round. ’”he object of the farmer is to turn over his expenditure on manures quickly by getting the outlay back with a pi'oflt by the bigger yield of the crop, and therefore the modern farmer uses in spring fertilisers, that act no the first crop rather than those kinds which become available slowly. He does not .farm for posterity, but for prompt profit.