LEGUMINOUS CROP AS FERTILISERS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 708, 30 September 1914, Page 6

LEGUMINOUS CROP AS FERTILISERS.

There are two classes of crops, leguminous or nitrogen-gathering, and non-leguminous. Among the latter may be named wheat, oats, and rye. When the ground is loft bare, at after harvesting wheat und oate there may be large louses of nitre gen from the soil. It is the perio when the Boil is warm and nitrificj tion may he taking place rapi.lly. J some crop ia grown it will use 0 the nitrates and prevent their loss i drainage wastes. Also, every cro grown takes up some of the minerl matter in the soil. When thffl crops are turned under at the end £ the growing season all the plat food used by the plant is restoid to the Boil in the vegetable matt", which will form humus and lese the plant food availuble for le succeeding cropn. The luminous plants are this which bear their sweds in bivao pods. All the peas, beans andclovs belong to this class of plants. R io peculiar characteristics of th<a plants is their power, through e agency of bacteria living on thr roots, to make use of the free nitgen of the air. There are abit 70,000,0001b of atmosphere nitrogi resting over every acre of the carts surface, hence it is a great boono the farmer that he has the means f drawing freely upon this supply, - stead of having to pay 1h to Is i per lb for it in fertilisers. M(t plants must have nitrogen stored ) in the soil for their uhc. The or adequate means of keeping sufficie; store of nitrogen in the soil is ' return all the manure possible ai grow leguminous crops to feed sto or plough under for green manuring. In order to grow leguminouß cro successfully, certain conditions ha to be met. There must be plenty mineral plant food in the soil, ui sufficient lime to prevent acidity the soil, as the bacteria living on tl roots of the various! plants do n thrive in an acid Boil. The legum are also heavy fcfidere. as shown I the fact that a ton of clover hay tak out of the soil 401b of nitrogen, 11 of phosphoric acid, and «Glb of potas Leguminous crops are not altogethi independent of manuring. Tho on element of soil fertility that thet plants can get outside of the soil nitrogen, but they are heavy feedoi on the mineral elements of plant fooc Removing large and numerous crop of any of these plants will certainl leave 'he soil more deficient in th mineral ingredients It is true tha soil will produce better after a crop o .•lover haa been grown and removed but this is to bo explained by the fac that the clover uses both soil nitrogei and atmospheric nitrogen and tha there may be left in the roots ritro gen taken from the atmosphere ii excels of the soil nitrogen removed; and further, that tha deep roots o! leguminous plants bring up niineru matter from the lower depths of th< soil, where it could not be reached bj Bhallow rooting crops.