Lilly's complete annual : seeds fertilizers spray materiels poultry supplies stock foods bee supplies . m theair, but must be convert-ed into liquid or avail-able form by the decayof plant tissue containingit. It can be taken fromthe air only by the bac-teria which grow on theroots of leguminous cloverplants, including alfalfa,clovers, vetches, peas,beans, etc. These bac-teria take nitrogen fromthe air, and when theydie and decay make thenitrogen which they con-tain available for otherplants. Most soils contain con-siderable supplies of allthe essential elements offertility, generally enoughto
Lilly's complete annual : seeds fertilizers spray materiels poultry supplies stock foods bee supplies . m theair, but must be convert-ed into liquid or avail-able form by the decayof plant tissue containingit. It can be taken fromthe air only by the bac-teria which grow on theroots of leguminous cloverplants, including alfalfa,clovers, vetches, peas,beans, etc. These bac-teria take nitrogen fromthe air, and when theydie and decay make thenitrogen which they con-tain available for otherplants. Most soils contain con-siderable supplies of allthe essential elements offertility, generally enoughto last for a hundredyears or more. The prob-lem of fertility is that ofgetting this plant foodinto available form. The chief agencies fordissolving mineral plantfood materials are thebacteria and acids whichare developed in decay-ing vegetable and animalmatter. Rotting vegeta-tion, or humus, is there-fore the best agency formaintaining or increasingthe availability of plantfood. This accounts for thewell known beneficial effect of manure. The actualbenefit of manure when applied to soils is at least. double the value of the plant food which the manuresupplies, because of the fact that the manure in rot-ting dissolves and makes available plant food whichwas already present in the soil in unavailable of the best means of increasing fertility ofsoils is, therefore, theplowing under of somehumus forming this purpose barn-yard manure is in value are so-called green manuresor green crops plowedunder. Of these the le-gumes are by far the bestbecause they are the nit-rogen gathering crops. A red clover cropwhen plowed under addsto the soil about $ of nitrogen whichthe bacteria associatedwith it have taken fromthe air. Other green crops, likerye, buckwheat, etc.,when plowed under, pro-duce humus, and, there-fore, help to make avail-able the plant food al-ready present in the soil,but they do not add tothe soil any of the criti-cal elements of fer
Size: 1042px × 2398px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorhenryggilbertnurserya, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910
