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What Professor Massey Says WILL Bordeaux mixture prevent the tip rot in tomatoes?" Not to any great extent. This rot seems to be more the result of arid conditions than a true disease. It is worse in dry weather, while a real fungus is favored by moist conditions. IN UPPER South Carolina, in the Piedmont sec tion, "On good clay land what grass is best to sow for hay, and how much seed an acre?” I would sow a mixture of ten poimds of orchard grass, five pounds of redtop, and ten pounds of tall meadow oats grass an acre, as early as the soil can we worked lightly with a smoothing harrow. IS THE canning of sweet potatoes profitable?” Recently I asked this question of a large can nor who was putting up sweet potatoes. He said that the only market for them seems to be in the far northwest and the mining regions, and that he found little profit In them, and simply used them to prolong the season for work for the peo ple he employs. WHEN is the best time to plant Bermuda grass for pasture?” About the middle of April will be a good time. Put the land in good order and make cuttings of the running stems, commonly called roots and scatter them in shallow furrows two feet apart and the Btems rather thickly in the furrow. Cover lightly and roll to pack the soil to them and they will soon spread and cover the land. A CORRESPONDENT says: "Oil our sandy soil we have to side-dress corn and cotton with nitrate of soda or the corn will fire. Will ‘Cereal ite’ answer as well as nitrate of soda?” As I have said before, corn will never fire if you have a clover sod under it that was manured in the win ter. I have never used "Cerealite” and cannot say how it would do, but as I have often said, you cannot make cheap corn with fertilizer. OUR friends who are writing to tell me that I am entirely wrong about planting at different stages of the moon and killing hogs by the same test had just as well Bave their paper and stamps. If it makes them any happier to watch the moon, I have no objection to their doing bo, but we can not spare space in the paper to try to convince them that It is better to watch the soil and the ma nure, and I am too busy a man to try to get them out of old superstitions. A RECENT letter says: “I am sending you un der separate cover a sample of soil and would like to know what fertilizer is needed on such soil?” No one can tell anything about the needs of a, soil by looking at it. Not even a chemical analysis that would cost a good deal to make, would bo of much help, because the analysis would merely show you what the soli contains, but would give you no information as to its availability to plant roots. One thing is certain and that is, that you cannot go wrong in any soil by using every ef fort. to increase the amount of vegetable decay or humus as we call it in the soil. With plenty of this in the Boil any fertilizer will have a better ef fect because the moisture will be retained to dis solve it, and the soil will be warmer and earlier, and more mellow. Practice a good rotation, grow and feed plenty of pea hay and other legume crops and make manure, for manure Bults any soil. A S USUAL, I get a number of letters asking) ■n. what fertilizers and how' much to apply for corn. You cannot make cheap corn by de pending on fertilizer. One man writes that on his sandy soil corn always fires and he wants a fer tilizer to stop it. You cannot do it that way. I have never seen a held of corn fired that was planted on a crimson clover crop turned under, ir. Clarendon Davis, of Alabama, whose beautiful farm I have seen, kindly writes that his success has been from following my suggestions. He says that he makes corn at an average cost of less than ten cents a bushel. But he feeds stock and makes manure and grows clover and peas. A good com plete fertilizer will increase the com crop, but if you will leave a part without the fertiliser as I ha\e done, you will find that you have paid a fair market price for all the Increase. Always have a green winter cover on the land on which to spread the manure for corn. p u A FARMER says: "in niy rotation it is necessary „ to plant peanuts on land that has been in cow peas for three years. My experience in this SL been unsatisfactory, as the crop was mainly pons he5I.ewP|,th?utthfetlf th« land has been a peas without fertilizer and the nenn land. th. result e„.r to £ greedy eonsumers of phosphoric acid and potash, and in your sandy soil these are naturally de ficient and the peas have robbed it while leaving some organic nitrogen. Pops are caused by a defi ciency in the mineral.....foods,.-"especially potash. Lime and plaster have been largely used by pea nut growers, and the effect of these is to release insoluble potash In the soil and hence to tend to prevent pops. Now if you give the peanuts plenty of phosphate and potash, I think that you can make them even after peas. I would use a very little nitrate of soda merely as a starter, for pea nuts, like peas, can get nitrogen from the air, but would use Thomas phosphate heavily, as it carries some lime and would also use a large per centage of potash and apply both broadcast. Fifty pounds of nitrate of soda, 500 pounds of Thomas phos phate, and fifty pounds of muriate of potash per acre will make the peanuts. A SUBSCRIBER writes: ‘‘I wish to apply some fertilizer on my oats. Shall I use stable ma nure and harrow it in or use fertilizer?” I would spread all my manure on the land that is to be planted to corn. Nitrate of soda, 100 pounds an acre, will make a good top-dressing for the oats DON’T BE AFRAID TO USE THE HARROW. OOME farmers are content with one or two har ^ rowings, or merely enough to break up the lar gest lumps and enable the seeds to germinate. But that is not enough. We harrow to increase the feed ing area of the roots all through the season by giving them finely divided soil in which to spread. We harrow to put the soil in the bea^ossible condition to catch and hold the rains. We Harrow to warm the soil, to aerate it and to promote the activity of the germ life that is so essential to its fertility. This means that the ground should be gone over more than is necessary to merely break up the lumps so that the seeds will germinate. It means harrowing and cross-harrowing, three times, four times, six times - if necessary; or until all of the upper four or five inches of soil upturned by the plow has been made as nearly like an onion bed m mellowness as the tex ture of the soil will permit. It does not pay to skimp harrowing in the rush of the busiest season of the farmers' busy year. A farmer once told me that every tiihe he went over a certain piece of land with his cutaway harrow, in pre paring it with corn, he received more than seventy five cents an hour for the work when the ears were bushelled.—Dr. W. S. Fletcher in “Soils.” if applied when the leaves are dry, and you can harrow them with benefit. I do not use any of the low-grade fertilizer you mention as my work nowadays is entirely in gardening. I have two grades of fertilizer to use on my sandy soil. One has 7 per cent ammonia, 6 per cent phosphoric acid and 5 per cent potash. The other has 2 per cent ammonia, 8 per cent phosphoric acid and 10 per cent potash. After spreading manure on the land heavily I spread this last-named fertilizer at rate of 100 pounds an acre broadcast. The higher grade I use as a starter in the furrows in planting Bome things that need heavy fertilization, putting it on the manure in the hills for melons and cu cumbers and using it as a side-dressing on toma toes and cabbage and lettuce. The land is cover ed all over thickly with rotten manure. This spring I am using hog-pen manure because I could not buy horse manure. But it is old and rotten and with the heavy fertilization it will, I think show good results. On the farm the place for the stable manure is on clover that is to be turned un der for corn. It will do more there towards the' improvement of the soil than anywhere else in the rotation. Heavy fertilization with complete com ™ercf* fertilizers pays better on cotton than on any other farm crop except tobacco. Improving Pine Barrens Land. 1AM green at Southern farming.” writes a read er of The Progressive Parmer. “Have bouaht some land near Pinehurst. N. C„ and wish fo sow it in peas as a preparation for growing cotton another season. How deep should the plowing be done- What quantity of peas should be sown an acre? Will it be the best policy to plow undlr the ferHlS In0nl!ra?e °f them and Use more ertilizer. In planting peach trees is there any advantage in setting them on a northern slope o? on a soutliern slope as some advocate?” i*>aT!!at*i!and> 18 8uch deep sand and so naturally better tth?4 d6eP p,owing ,s not available, for it is better to form something like a little hard-Dan not far down to help retain moisture and plant food Six inches is abundantly deep to plow that land The Chief of the Bureau of Soils in w ^B says that all soils are equally well - ****>*11 plant food. If he tried to work thafPP ^ pine barrens without adding more anw.01tiflB food, I rather think that he would c„ til conclusion that soils differ a store of plant food. 8 at deal «» t£jH The first thing of importance in the t I meat of that soil is to get humus or veJ5?*§l cay into it as rapidly as possible Th *B® while on land in fair average state'of 291 would always save a pea crop for hay and f and return the manure to the land in *hi would start by turning under the growth in September and would then add more nh ric acid and potash to the land and -^Bl clover. For this purpose I believe that the Tw W as phosphate will be best as it carries some and that will tend to some extent to aw<w*.. rBi soil for the clover. 1,8 In sowing the peas I would always put thewi.9 with a wheat drill set to sow two bushels of vhjl an acre and that will put the pea3 in about rhlM and will put them in at a uniform depth and toll will do far better than simply harrowed in ul many fail to get covered at all. B The getting of the humus-making material inuE the soil is the greatest thing in its improvem2H as I have suggested, for you want to darken tel soil and make it warmer, and above all wfrijB more retentive of moisture and hence more (tell ble of dissolving the plant food applied in theteffl tilizers. Give the peas not less than 30ft •»uiS of acid phosphate and twenty-five pounds of iiZjj riate of potash an acre well harrowed in a tJmM before sowing to get rid of the caustic chandarl of the potash. Then if you get a good stud (fl crimson clover on the peas in the fall, yon eul turn that under in the early spring for cottontail prepare the land well and add more phosphate nil potash broadcast and plant the cotton on the lHstl Then after it is up and has been gone overhaul ways with a weeder, apply fifty pounds of nitnfcl of soda an acre alongside the rows, and repeatttil dose as the cotton approaches the blooming pal riod. Cultiyate it shallow and level, and them*! running far and wide across the rows will thull you for putting the fertilizer broadcast. Then pdl the land into a rotation that will give you plestrl of legumes and winter cover. Get humus into All land and when it improves in production nihil forage of the legumes and feed to stock and til turn the manure to the land. j Follow a three-year rotation of corn with pcfl among it, winter oats, followed by peas and chi ver; cotton with clover sown among it and follow-; ed by corn again with all the manure on the clovw sod to go in corn and repeat. In .this way youcu and keep that land producing good crops If youTsupply the phosphate and potash liberally. Sulfate of Ammonia. *-akmuk says: "i nna that I can purcnaw sulfate of ammonia for less per unit of am monia than I can in nitrate of soda, blood, cottonseed meal or nitrate of potash. Please give me your opinion of this article?” Sulfate of ammonia often does damage' in fflj experience unless the land has been recently lim ed. Then you cannot compare it directly with ni trate of soda, for the nitrate Is already in the form that plants take nitrogen. It is nitrogen we want and not ammonia, for plants do not use ammonia till it has become nitrified through the action of' the soil bacteria. There is no ammonia in nitrate : of soda, which is a combination of nitric acid and j sodium, and all the other materials you mention ; must go through the process of nitrification to get a into the state that the nitrate of soda is alreadj except the nitrate of potash, which is also a ni- ; trate and readily available. But nitrate of potash while excellent is usually too costly. Sulfate of amomnia will have of.actual nitrogen about 20 per cent. Nitrate of soda has an aver age of 15.7 per cent of nitrogen, and sulfate must go through the process of nitrification before it be comes available. Ammonia is a hydride of nitro gen, and is really about 85 per cent nitrogen, It is, as I have said, the nitrogen that we want Dried blood and cottonseed meal have organic ni trogen in them. This must be broken down W bacteria to make ammonia and then other bacteri* feed on ammonia and make it a nitrite, and tbe« another form takes up the work and makes nitri® acid, and when nitric acid is present it at once unites with a base in the soil and forms a nitfnj® which plants can use. Hence, we use some nitrn • of soda for immediate effect and add some of tW organic materials to keep up the work later iu * 8 season after the nitrate of soda has been use® The nitrate of soda, being at once available *® very soluble, is soon washed from the soil if growing plants are at hand to take it up. Hen« it is best applied while the crop Is growing. 1“* not used any sulfate of ammonia for many y®**" for the nitrate is far better and safer.