It is an old saying that “any fool can farm,”
and this was almost the truth when farming consisted
chiefly in reducing the fertility of new, rich land
secured at practically no cost from a generous Government.
But to restore depleted soils to high productive power
in economic systems is no fool’s job, for it
requires mental as well as muscular energy; and no
apologies should be expected from those who necessarily
make use of technical terms in the discussion of this
technical subject, notwithstanding the common foolish
advice that farmers should be given a sort of “parrot”
instruction in almost baby language instead of established
facts and principles in definite and permanent scientific
terms. The farmer should be as familiar with
the names of the ten essential elements of plant food
as he is with the names of his ten nearest neighbors.
Safe and permanent systems of soil improvement and
preservation may come with intelligence—never
with ignorance—on the part of the landowners.
When the knowledge becomes general that food for plants
is just as necessary as food for animals, then American
agriculture will mean more than merely working the
land for all that’s in it. This knowledge
is as well established as the fact that the earth is
round, although the people are relatively few who understand
or make intelligent application of the existing information.
Agricultural plants consist of ten elements, known
as the essential elements of plant food; and not a
kernel of corn or a grain of wheat, not a leaf of
clover or a spear of grass can be produced if the
plant fails to secure any one of these ten elements.
Some of these are supplied to plants in abundance
by natural processes; others are not so provided and
must be supplied by the farmer, or his land becomes
impoverished and unproductive.
Foods That Plants Live On
Two elements, carbon and oxygen, are contained in
normal air in the form of a gas called carbon dioxid,
and this compound is taken into the plant through
the breathing pores, which are microscopic openings
located chiefly on the under side of the leaves.
Some plants have more than a hundred thousand breathing
pores to the square inch of leaf surface.
When plants or plant products are burned or decomposed
the carbon of the combustible material—grass,
wood, coal, and so forth—unites with the
free oxygen of the atmosphere to re-form the carbon
dioxid, which thus returns as a gas to the air.
Even the food taken into the animal system, after
being digested and carried into the blood, is brought,
into contact with the oxygen of the air—which
also passes into the blood through the cell walls
of the lungs—and a form of combustion takes
place, the heat generated serving to warm the body
while the carbon dioxid passes back into the lungs
and is exhaled into the open air.
