MANURING.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2114, 21 October 1890, Page 3

MANURING.

A late report by the South Carolina Department of Agriculture says mauures should not be lavishly used with the expectation that es ery additional pound applied will correspondingly increase the crop; that doubling them will double the yield as often as that process is repeated. There is abundant experimental proof that in any given soil the amount of any fertiliser cannot be profitably pushed beyond a certain point. After this is passed the increase of yield will not pay for the additional cost. of application. And very soon even the limit of production, so far as the fertiliser is concerned, is reached. Neither land nor cattle can be profitably stuffed.' ihe process of improving the soil, like the process of fattening, is comparatively gradual and requires time, ±*oor soils demand other things besides commercial fertilisers to bring them into good. condition and make them productive.; Vegetable matter (humus) is needed to improve their physical properties, to enable them to retain moisture and resist drought. The best practice of the day holds thitf only the amount of manure actually required by the crop to be grown should be applied; that any surplus is liable to be lost or pass into insoluble combination in the soil, aud that it all recovered in subsequent cr# p ß . Such surplus is regard'd as idle capital Yet the arg”2>ent is not against a liberal supply for the crop in hand, but only against excessive manuring. The margin of profit in the application of manures is narrower than is gererally supposed, and too many of our farmers are disposed to use them recklessly and to expect too much from them,