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The Story of the Soil

C >> Cyril G. Hopkins >> The Story of the Soil




"The fact that nitrification will not proceed in the presence of
acid reminds us that only a certain degree of acidity can be
developed in sour milk. Here the lactic acid bacteria produce the
acid from milk sugar, but the process stops when about seven-tenths
of one per cent. of lactic acid has developed. If some basic
substance, such as lime, is then added, the acid is neutralized and
the fermentation again proceeds.

"In the general process of decay and oxidation of the organic matter
of the soil, the nitrogen thus passes through the forms of ammonia,
nitrous acid, and nitric acid, and at the same time the carbon
passes into various acid compounds, including the complex humic and
ulmic acids, and smaller amounts of acetic acid (found in vinegar),
lactic acid, oxalic acid (found in oxalic), and tartaric acid (found
in grapes). The final oxidation products of the carbon and hydrogen
are carbon dioxid and water, which result from the decomposition of
the carbonic acid.

"Now the various acids of carbon and nitrogen constitute one of the
most important factors in soil fertility. They are the means by
which the farmer can dissolve and make available for the growing
crops the otherwise insoluble mineral elements, such as iron,
calcium, magnesium, and potassium, all of which are contained in
most soils in great abundance. These elements exist in the soil
chiefly in the form of insoluble silicates. Silicon itself is a
four-handed element which bears somewhat the same relation to the
mineral matter of the soil as carbon bears to the organic matter.
Quartz sand is silicon dioxid (SiO2). Oxygen, which is present in
nearly all substances, including air, water, and most solids,
constitutes about one-half of all known matter. Silicon is next in
abundance, amounting to more than one-fourth of the solid crust of
the earth. Aluminum is third in abundance (about seven per cent),
aluminum silicate being common clay. Iron, calcium, potassium,
sodium, and magnesium, in this order, complete the eight abundant
elements, which aggregate about ninety-eight per cent. of the solid
crust of the earth.

"It is worth while to know that about two and one-half per cent. of
the earth's crust is potassium, while about one-tenth of one per
cent. is phosphorus; also that when a hundred bushels of corn are
sold from the farm, seventeen pounds of phosphorus, nineteen of
potassium, and seven of magnesium are carried away.

"The acids formed from the decaying organic matter not only liberate
for the use of crops the mineral elements contained in the soil in
abundance, but they also help to make available the phosphorus of
raw phosphate, when naturally contained in the soil, as it is to
some extent in all soils, or when applied to the soil in the
fine-ground natural phosphate from the mines.

"Now the increase or decrease of organic matter in the soil is
measured with a very good degree of satisfaction by the element
nitrogen, which is a regular constituent of the organic matter of
the soil; and you are already familiar, Mr. Thornton, with the
amounts of nitrogen contained in average farm manure and in some of
our most common crops."

"Yes, Sir, I have some of the figures in my note book and I mean to
have them in my head very soon. But, say, that organic matter seems
to be a thing of tremendous importance, and I'm sure we've got
mighty little of it. I think about the only thing we'll need to do
to make this old farm productive again is to grow the vegetation and
plow it under. As it decays, it will furnish the nitrogen, and
liberate the phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and magnesium; and we
may have plenty of all of them just waiting to be liberated."

"That is altogether possible," said Percy; "but it must be
remembered that your soil is acid and consequently will not grow
clover or alfalfa successfully, or even cowpeas very satisfactorily.
A liberal use of ground limestone and large use of clover may be
sufficient to greatly improve your soil; but if I am permitted to
separate Miss Russell and the Thorntons "--Mr. Thornton's hilarious
"Ha, ha" cut Percy short. He crimsoned and the ladies smiled at each
other with expressions that revealed nothing whatever.

"Now let me finish," Percy continued, when Mr. Thornton had somewhat
subsided. "I say, if I am permitted to separate Miss Russell and the
Thorntons from about three hundred acres of their land, I shall
certainly wish to know its total content of phosphorus, potassium,
magnesium, and calcium, before I make any purchase; and, if you will
remember the pot cultures and the peaty swamp land, I think you'd
agree with me.

"Well, I shall be mighty glad to know that myself," said Mr.
Thornton, "and we shall much appreciate it if you can tell us how
to secure that information."

"We can collect some soil to-morrow," Percy replied, "and send it to
a chemist for analysis."

"Good," said Mr. Thornton; "now just one more question, and I think
I shall sleep better if I have it answered to-night. Just what is
meant by potash and phosphoric acid?"

"Potash," said Percy, "is a compound of potassium and oxygen. The
proportions are one atom of oxygen and two atoms of potassium, which
you may remember are single-handed and weigh thirty-nine, so that
seventy-eight of potassium unite with sixteen of oxygen. A better
name for the compound is potassium oxid: K20. The Latin name for
potassium is kalium, and K is the symbol used for an atom of that
element. If you were to purchase potassium in the form of potassium
chlorid, which in the East is often called by the old incorrect name
'muriate of potash,' the salt might be guaranteed to contain a
certain percentage of potash, which, however, consists of
eighty-three per cent. of potassium and seventeen of oxygen."

"Just what is this potassium chlorid, or 'muriate of potash'?"

"Pure potassium chlorid contains only the two elements, potassium
and chlorin."

"But didn't you say that it was guaranteed to contain potash and
that potash is part oxygen? Now you say it contains only potassium
and chlorin."

"Yes, I am sorry to say, that this is one of those blunders of our
semi-scientific ancestors for which we still suffer. The chemist
understands that the meaning of the guarantee of potash is the
amount of potash that the potassium present in the potassium chlorid
could be converted into. The best you can do is to reduce the potash
guarantee to potassium by taking eighty-three per cent. of it; or,
to be more exact, divide by ninety-four and multiply by
seventy-eight, in order to eliminate the sixteen parts of oxygen.

"It may be well to keep in mind that when the druggist says potash
he means potassium hydroxid, KOH, a compound of potassium, hydrogen,
and oxygen, as the name indicates."

"You mentioned the word chlorin," said Mr. Thornton. "That is
another element?"

"Yes, that is a very common element. Ordinary table salt is sodium
chlorid: NaCl. Sodium is called natrium in Latin, and Na is the
symbol used in English to be in harmony with all other languages,
for practically all use the same chemical symbols. Sodium and
potassium are very similar elements in some respects, and in the
free state they are very peculiar, apparently taking fire when
thrown into water. Chlorin in the free state is a poisonous gas.
Thus the change in properties is well illustrated when these two
dangerous elements, sodium and chlorin, unite to form the harmless
compound which we call common salt.

"It is a shame," continued Percy, "that agricultural science has so
long been burdened with such a term as 'phosphoric acid,' which
serves to complicate and confuse what should be made the simplest
subject to every American farmer and landowner. As agriculture is
the fundamental support of America and of all her other great
industries, so the fertility of the soil is the absolute support of
every form of agriculture. Now, if there is any one factor that can
be the most important, where so many are positively essential, then
the most important factor in the problem of adopting and maintaining
permanent systems of profitable agriculture on American soils is the
element phosphorus.

"Phosphorus in very appreciable amount is positively necessary for
the growth of every organism. It is an absolutely essential
constituent of the nucleus of every living cell, whether plant or
animal. Nuclein, itself, which is the substance nearest to the
beginning of a new cell, contains as high as ten per cent. of the
element phosphorus.

"On the other hand, phosphorus is the most limited of all the plant
food elements, measured by supply and demand and circulation.

"What is phosphoric acid? Well, the professor of chemistry says it
is a compound containing three atoms of hydrogen, one of phosphorus,
and four of oxygen. It is a syrupy liquid and one of the strongest
mineral acids. In concentrated form it is as caustic as oil of
vitriol. Why, here you have a Century dictionary. That should tell
what phosphoric acid is. This is what the Century says:

"'It is a colorless, odorless syrup, with an intensely sour taste.
It is tribasic, forming three distinct classes of metallic salts.
The three atoms of hydrogen may in like manner be replaced by
alcohol radicles, forming acid and neutral ethers. Phosphoric acid
is used in medicine as a tonic.'

"That," continued Percy, "is the complete definition as given by the
Century dictionary as to what phosphoric acid is, and I note that
this is the latest edition of the Century, copyrighted in 1902."

"We bought it less than a month ago," said Mrs. Thornton. "We can
have so few books that we thought the Century would be a pretty good
library in itself; Mr. Thornton has had too little time to use it
much as yet."

"Well, even if I had used it," said Mr. Thornton, "you see there are
five volumes before I'd get to the P's. But, joking aside, I don't
get much out of that definition except that phosphoric acid is a
sour liquid and is used in medicine."

"The definition is entirely correct," said Percy "Any text on
chemistry will give you a very similar definition, and your
physician and druggist will give you the same information."

"Well, I know the fertilizer agents claim to sell phosphoric acid in
two-hundred-pound bags which wouldn't hold any kind of liquid."

"True," replied Percy, "and I consider it a shame that the farm boy
who goes to the high school or college and is there taught exactly
what phosphoric acid is, must. when he returns to the farm, try to
read bulletins from his agricultural experiment station in which the
term 'phosphoric acid' is used for what it is not. At the state
agricultural college, the professor of chemistry correctly teaches
the farm boy that phosphoric acid is a liquid compound containing
three atoms of hydrogen, one of phosphorus, and four of oxygen in
the molecule; and then the same professor, as an experiment station
investigator, goes to the farmers' institutes and incorrectly
teaches the same boy's father that phosphoric acid is a solid
compound pound containing two atoms of phosphorus and five atoms of
oxygen in the molecule."

"But why do they continue to teach such confusion?"

"Well, Sir, if they know, they never tell. In some manner this
misuse of the name was begun, and every year doubles the difficulty
of stopping it."

"Like the man that was too lazy to stop work when he had once
begun," remarked Mr. Thornton.

"Yes," said Percy, "but it is true that some of the States have
adopted the practice of reporting analyses of soils and fertilizers
on the basis of nitrogen instead of ammonia; and in the Corn Belt
States, phosphorus and potassium are the terms used to a large
extent instead of 'phosphoric acid,' and potash. The agricultural
press is greatly assisting in bringing about the adoption of the
simpler system, and the laws of some States now require that the
percentages of the actual plant food elements, as nitrogen,
phosphorus, and potassium, shall be guaranteed in fertilizers
offered for sale. It is one of those questions that are never
settled until they are settled right; and it is only a question of
time until the simple element basis will be used throughout the
United States, or at least in the Central and Western States."

"The so-called 'phosphoric acid' of the fertilizer agent is a
compound whose molecule contains two atoms of phosphorus and five
atoms of oxygen; and, since the atomic weight of phosphorus is
thirty-one and that of oxygen sixteen, this compound contains
sixty-two parts of phosphorus and eighty parts of oxygen. In other
words, this phosphoric acid, falsely so-called, contains a trifle
less than forty-four per cent. of the actual element phosphorus."

"Is the bone phosphate of lime that the agents talk about the same
as the 'phosphoric acid'?" asked Mr. Thornton.

"No, by 'bone phosphate of lime,' which is often abbreviated B. P.
L., is meant tricalcium phosphate, a compound which contains exactly
twenty per cent. of phosphorus. Thus, you can always divide the
guaranteed percentage of 'bone phosphate of lime' by five, and the
result will be the per cent. of phosphorus.

"As stated in your Century dictionary, true phosphoric acid forms
three distinct classes of salts, because either one, two, or all of
the three hydrogen atoms may be replaced by a metallic element.
Thus, we have phosphoric acid itself containing the three hydrogen
atoms, one phosphorus atom, and four oxygen atoms. This might be
called trihydrogen phosphate (H3PO4). Now if one of the hydrogen
atoms is replaced by one potassium atom, we have potassium
dihydrogen phosphate (KH2PO4); with two potassium atoms and one
hydrogen, we have dipotassium hydrogen phosphate (K2HPO4); and if
all hydrogen is replaced by potassium the compound is tripotassium
phosphate (K3PO4). To make similar salts with two-handed metallic
elements, like calcium or magnesium, we need to start with two
molecules of phosphoric acid H6(PO4)2; because each atom of calcium
will replace two hydrogen atoms. Thus we have mono calcium
phosphate, CaH4(PO4)2, dicalcium phosphate, Ca2H2(PO4)2, and
tricalcium phosphate, Ca3(PO4)2. It goes without saying that
monocalcium phosphate contains four atoms of hydrogen and that
dicalcium phosphate contains two hydrogen atoms. By knowing the
atomic weights (40 for calcium, 31 for phosphorus, and 16 for
oxygen), it is easy to compute that the molecule of tricalcium
phosphate weighs 310 of which 62 is phosphorus. This is exactly
one-fifth, or twenty per cent. This compound you will remember is
sometimes called 'bone phosphate of lime'. It is also called simply
'bone phosphate'; because it is the phosphorus compound contained in
bones. It is sometimes called lime phosphate, although it contains
no lime in the true sense, for it has no power to neutralize acid
soils, except when the phosphorus is taken up by plants more rapidly
than the calcium, which in such case might remain in the soil to act
as a base to neutralize soil acids; but even then the effect of the
small amount of calcium thus liberated from the phosphate would be
very insignificant compared with a liberal application of ground
limestone."

"Well," said Mr. Thornton, stretching himself, "orange phosphate is
my favorite drink but I fear some of these phosphate you have just
been giving me are too concentrated. I ought to have the dose
diluted; but I like the taste of it, and if you'll write a book
along this line, in this plain way just about as you have been
giving it to me straight for almost twelve hours, I tell you I'll
read it over till I learn to understand it a heap better than I do
now."






CHAPTER XVIII

CLOSER TO MOTHER EARTH





THE following day Percy collected soil samples to represent the
common type of soil on the farm. In the main the land was nearly
level and very uniform, although here and there were small areas
which varied from the main type, and in places the variation was
marked. Percy and his host devoted the entire day to an examination
of the soils of the farm and the collection of the samples.

"The prevailing soil type is what would be called a loam," said
Percy, "and a single set of composite samples will fairly represent
at least three-fourths of the land on this farm.

"It seems to me that it is enough for the present to sample this
prevailing type, and later, if you desire, you could collect samples
of the minor types, of which there are at least three that are quite
distinct."

"A loam soil is one that includes a fair proportion of the several
groups of soil materials, including silt, clay, and sand."

"What is silt?" asked Mr. Thornton.

"Silt consists of the soil particles which are finer than sand,--too
small in fact to be felt as soil grains by rubbing between the
fingers, and yet it is distinctly granular, while clay is a mere
plastic or sticky mass like dough. What are commonly called clay
soils consist largely of silt, but contain enough true clay to bind
the silt into a stiff mass. In the main such soils are silt loams,
but when deficient in organic matter they are yellow in color as a
rule, and all such material is usually called clay by the farmers."

"Well, I had no idea that it would take us a whole day to get enough
dirt for an analysis," remarked Mr. Thornton, as they were
collecting the samples late in the afternoon. "Five minutes would
have been plenty of time for me, before I saw the holes you've bored
to-day."

"The fact is," replied Percy, "that the most difficult work of the
soil investigator is to collect the samples. Of course any one could
fill these little bags with soil in five minutes, but the question
is, what would the soil represent? It may represent little more than
the hole it came out of, as would be the case where the soil had
been disturbed by burrowing animals, or modified by surface
accumulations, as where a stack may sometime have been burned. In
the one case the subsoil may have been brought up and mixed with the
surface, and in the other the mineral constituents taken from forty
acres in a crop of clover may have been returned to one-tenth of an
acre."

"Certainly such things have occurred on many farms," agreed Mr.
Thornton, "and they may have occurred on this farm for all any one
knows."

"Fifty tons of clover hay," continued Percy, after making a few
computations, "would contain 400 pounds of phosphorus, 2400 pounds
of potassium, 620 pounds of magnesium, and 2340 pounds of calcium."

"I don't see how you keep all those figures in your head," said Mr.
Johnston.

"How many pounds are there in a ton of hay?" asked Percy.

"Two thousand."

"How many pounds in a bushel of oats?"

"Thirty in Virginia, but thirty-two in Carolina."

"How many in a bushel of wheat?"

"Sixty"

"Corn?"

"Fifty-six pounds of shelled corn, or seventy pounds of ears."

"Potatoes?"

"Eighty-six pounds,--both kinds the same, but most States require
sixty pounds for the Irish potatoes."

Percy laughed. "You see," he said, "you have more figures in your
head than I have in mine. You have mentioned twice as many right
here, without a moment's hesitation, as I try to remember for the
plant food contained in clover. I like to keep in mind the
requirements of large crops, such as it is possible to raise under
our climatic conditions if we will provide the stuff the crops are
made of, so far as we need to, and do the farm work as it should be
done. I never try to remember how much plant food is required for
twenty-two bushels of corn per acre, which is the average yield of
Virginia for the last ten years, while an authentic record reports a
yield of 239 bushels from an acre of land in South Carolina. On our
little farm in Illinois we have one field of sixteen acres, which
was used for a pasture and feed lot for many years by my grandfather
and has been thoroughly tile-drained since I was born, that has
produced as high as 2,015 bushels of corn in one season, thus making
an average of 126 bushels per acre.

"What I try to remember is the plant food requirements for such
crops as we ought to try to raise, if we do what ought to be done. I
try to remember the plant food required for a hundred-bushel crop of
corn, a hundred-bushel crop of oats, a fifty-bushel crop of wheat,
and four tons of clover hay. It is an easy matter to divide these
amounts by two, as I have really been doing here in the East where
it is hard for people to think in terms of such crops as these lands
ought to be made to produce.

"The requirements of the clover crop I certainly want to have in
mind as a part of my little stock of ever-ready knowledge. It is not
very hard to remember that a four-ton crop of clover hay, which we
ought to harvest from one acre in two cuttings, contains:

160 pounds of nitrogen,
31 pounds of magnesium,
20 pounds of phosphorus,
120 pounds of potassium,
117 pounds of calcium.

"It is just as easy to think in these terms as in per cent. or
pounds of butter fat, which I understand is the basis on which you
sell your cream."

"Yes, I believe you are right in this matter, Mr. Johnston, but I
have never been able to see how we could apply the figures reported
from chemical analysis."

"Neither do I see how any one but a chemist could make much use of
the reports which the analyst usually publishes. Such reports will
usually show the percentages of moisture and so-called 'phosphoric
acid,' for example, in a sample of clover hay, and perhaps the
percentages of these constituents in a sample of soil; but to
connect the requirements of the clover crop with the invoice of the
soil demand more of a mental effort than I was prepared for before I
went to the agricultural college.

"On the other hand we were taught in college that the plowed soil of
an acre of our most common Illinois corn belt land contains only
1200 pounds of phosphorus, and that a hundred-bushel crop of corn
takes twenty-three pounds of phosphorus out of the soil. Furthermore
that about one pound of phosphorus per acre is lost annually in
drainage water in humid regions. By dividing 1200 by 24 it is easy
to see that fifty corn crops such as we ought to try to raise would
require as much phosphorus as the present supply in our soil to a
depth of about seven inches. Of course there is some phosphorus
below seven inches, but it is the plowed soil we must depend upon to
a very large extent. The oldest agricultural experiment station in
the world is at Rothamsted, England. On two plots of ground in the
same field where wheat has been grown every year for sixty years,
the soil below the plow line has practically the same composition,
but on one plot the average yield for the last fifty years has been
thirteen bushels per acre, while on the other the yield of wheat has
averaged thirty-seven bushels for the same fifty years."

"The same kind of wheat?" inquired Mr. Thornton.

"Yes, and great care has always been taken to have these two plots
treated alike in all respects, save one."

"And what was that?"

"Plant food was regularly incorporated with the plowed soil of the
high-yielding plot."

"You mean that farm manure was used?"

"No, not a pound of farm manure has been used on that plot for more
than sixty years; and, furthermore, the two plots were very much
alike at the beginning; but, to the high-yielding plot, nitrogen,
phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, calcium, and sulfur have all been
applied in suitable compounds every year."

"That is to say," observed Mr. Thornton, "that the land itself has
produced thirteen bushels of wheat per acre and the plant food
applied has produced twenty four bushels, making the total yield
thirty-seven bushels on the fertilized land."

"That is certainly a fair way to state it," replied Percy.

" Well, that sounds as though something might be done with run-down
lands. About what part of the twenty-four bushels increase would it
take to pay for the fertilizers?"

"About 150 per cent. of it," Percy replied.

"One hundred and fifty per cent! Why, you can't have more than a
hundred per cent. of anything."

"Oh, yes, you can. The twenty-four bushels are one hundred per cent.
of what the fertilizers produced, and the land itself increased this
by fifty per cent., so that the fertilized land produced one hundred
and fifty per cent. of the increase from the plant food applied.

"Well, that's too much college mathematics for me; but do you mean
to say that it would take the whole thirty-seven bushels to pay for
the plant food that produced the increase of twenty-four bushels?"

"That is exactly what I mean. I see that you do not like percentage
any better than I do. Really the acre is the best agricultural unit.
We buy and sell the land itself by the acre; we report crop yields
at so many bushels or tons per acre; we apply manure at so many
loads or tons per acre; we apply so many hundred pounds of
fertilizer per acre; sow our wheat and oats at so many pecks or
bushels per acre; and we ought to know the invoice of plant food in
the plowed soil of an acre and the amounts carried off in the crops
removed from an acre.

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