While there are other essential ele ments that enter into the growth of the plant, the three that are the most talked of, not because they are more necessary than some others, but rather on account of their being more frequently lacking in their available form in our soils than any of the others, are nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash. Of these, recent analyses show that the average soil, to the depth of eight inches, contains nitrogen enough to last 90 years, phosphoric acid enough for 500 years, and potash sufficient for 1,000 years. Unfortunately these analyses show only the potential fertility of these soils, but do not tell us what proportion of the above named, elements are in a form available for the use of the plant. Warring says "The analysis of any tolerably fertile wheat soil will show that it contains within a foot of its surface an amount of phosphoric acid sufficient for the needs of probably a hundred times as many bushels of wheat as could be grown upon it in a hundred years without

the use of manure", but of this a very Jarge proportion is locked up in the interior of pebbles and coarse particles.

To make as much of this plant food available as possible, is the object of the most unselfish farmer, and he who succeeds best is commended for his efforts and his motive is never questioned. While the supply of nitrogen is the least and while it is the most expensive when bought in the form of a commercial fertilizer, and while it is gaseous in nature and therefore the one element that is the most easily lost to the soil, it is the one which is the most easily supplied to our Wisconsin soils by the use of leguminous plants, of which the clovers, as yet, stand at the head.

The phosphoric acid and the potash are mineral elements contained in an inert form in the rocks of which our soils were originally made. These rocks have been broken and ground and weathered and acted upon by many and varied forces of nature, until, intermixed with vegetable matter or humus in various stages of decomposition, it is now called soil and is submitted to us for our use and to our care. Nor are the processes of disintegration all complete. Upon the contrary they are silently and almost unobservedly going on each year. You have seen the hard surface of flint glass ground to powder by a few days use in a chicken's gizzard in masticating its food, so the earth worm while living upon the vegetable matter with which we supply the soil is continually grinding the coarser particles and reducing them. It has been estimated in England that ten tons of earth within an acre of fertile soil pass annually through the bodies of angle worms. Countless millions of bacteria are working upon the organic matter in the soil and rendering it available for plant food. Various chemical compounds are reducing mineral matter to a like form. Let us supply these forces by keeping the soil full of vegetable matter and aid their activity by proper tillage and management.

Once supplied with food, these unseen

forces do their best at a temperature of 60 to 80 degrees F., with sufficient moisture to form a film around each soil particle and with an aeration to supply the necessary oxygen. To these ends the farmer must give due attention to drainage, tillage, and proper application of manures.

Drainage.

We drain land, first, that water may not occupy the spaces between the soil

early bird gets the worm", and proper season counts for much with most farm crops.

Methods of Draining.

Without doubt,. underdraining is much better than surface draining where practicable. It insures a more perfect aeration of the soil and the bother of the open ditch is avoided, but there is a class of soils of so fine

Old method. 1st year

particles to the exculsion of oxygen, without which not only the plant but the bacteria as well would drown and the soil itself becomes lifeless.

We drain, secondly, to warm the soil that bacterial action may be stimulated. It is said that it takes five and one-half times as much heat to evaporate a given amount of water as it does to raise the same from a freezing to a boiling temperature. Again, the same amount of heat that raises a pound of iron ten degrees will raise a pound of water but one degree. It will be seen, therefore, that water is a very expensive material to warm, and a wet soil must, of necessity, be a cold soil.

Thirdly, we drain that we may get our crops in early in the spring. "The

and close a texture as to defy all attempts at underdraining. There is a large belt of this class running nearly if not quite across the state from west to east a little north of the center. These soils are classed as "clayey loam" and are indicated upon the soil map by figure 4. These soils are rich and productive and owing to their extremely fine texture they are capable of absorbing a vast amount of moisture by capillary action and holding it for the use of the crop. But in case of excessive rains, capillarity is too slow and unless some means of surface drainage be provided crops may be seriously injured. Much of this section is undulating and when the little pockets and depressions of the newer lands are filled, as they will be by a few

years of cultivation, the surface drainage will be much improved and possibly sufficient, but something more will have to be done with the flatter lands. Most of these have a little slope and may be drained by a proper method of plowing. A common way is to plow in narrow lands and reverse each year, putting the back furrow in the old dead furrow. This drains nothing, as the stagnant water will stand in the dead furrow and oftentimes the back furrow is the only dry part of the field.

A much more effective way would be to plow in wider lands, say eight rods

much importance as to conserve needed moisture in others.

Tillage.

The objects of tillage are to prepare a seed bed to conserve moisture, to kill weeds, to aerate the soil, to hasten the decay of vegetable matter in the soil, thereby breaking down mineral matter rendering inert elements of fertility available.

Soils and conditions vary so much that no iron-clad rule can be made as regards depth of plowing. Heavy clay soils may be temporarily if not

wide, putting the back furrow upon the old back furrow and the dead furrow in the old dead furrow and with a light scraper or slick, set at an angle with the pole, after the pattern of the old-fashioned rut scraper before the days of the modern road grader, pull down a little dirt from a too high back furrow or back from the edges of a too precipitous dead furrow, till the surface of each land presents a gentle but even incline from center to outside.

True, there would be a little bare clay at D that would be wasted, but better this than to lose a whole crop. To rid some soils of surplus moisture is of as

permanently injured by too deep plowing.

The clover plant grown in short rotation is the cheapest and I believe the best subsoiler and when so grown I do not believe there is need or benefit, for the common field crops, of plowing as deeply as many do. I had rather have the upper six inches of the soil well filled with humus than to have 12 inches only half as rich in this material. I do not want a manured soil turned more than four inches deep for corn. I am quite sure this is right for the clays in this northern latitude, and Roberts speaks of the lighter soils in parts of New Jersey where he says

nured and plowed four inches deep. B was stubble ground unmanured and plowed seven or more inches deep. Both fields were well tended. Pictures of soil tests, C shows that the soil in A possessed all the elements the plant needs in right proportions, while D plainly indicates that available phosphoric acid is lacking in field B. Probably the cold clay brought up by the deeper plowing is rich in potential phosphoric acid that may be made available by the introduction of vegetable matter and a period of weathering, but I would feel inclined to leave

once, a practice which is quite general in Wisconsin, but there are other equally good authorities who are not quite satisfied with this practice.

Brooks says: "There appears to be much need of further light on the general question of spreading fresh manure on the fields in winter. Many good farmers follow this practice, but there are also many who believe it to be a mistake."

In my own practice, to economize in time, I am hauling this winter and putting in piles to be spread just previous to plowing for corn, where form

erly upon more level ground I spread as hauled, but if I could handle it just to suit me, I would house in a compact form until spring and then haul and plow under at once. But the rush of spring work and the soft condition of fields will not always admit of this, and of two evils we should choose the least.

I would rather that manure be plowed under shallow than to leave it upon the surface. The benefits of incorporating the humus as well as the liquid in the soil cannot be over-estimated.

cally none of it, to percolate into the soil?

Johnson says: "Disintegration of the mineral matters of soils is aided by the presence of organic substances in a decaying state." We believe that when we have manures incorporated in the first few inches of a retentive soil that they are there to stay till the plant takes them, and the effect of one such application has been manifest for 20 years.

Let us carefully till our soil and feed it and exclaim with our own Prof. King that "Soil is not a grave where death

Storer says: "It is advantageous, as a means of preserving manure, to mix with moist loam, but where mixed with an excess of dry loam and then exposed to the free action of the air, there is danger that a good portion of the nitrogen may be lost." The practice of discing manure in the surface of a plowed field would therefore seem to be fraught with danger of loss of nitrogen.

If, as Warring says, "Phosphoric acid is the one element needed nine times out of ten", why should we leave the solids which contain the phosphoric acid on top of the ground and allow only the liquids, which contain practi

and quiet reign, but a birth-place where the cycles of life begin anew to run their courses over and over again."

DISCUSSION.

Mr. Smith-The speaker says he would rather have four inches of soil well filled with humus and well tilled than 12 inches poorly filled and tilled. Mr. Scott-Six inches.

Mr. Smith-Is not six inches well filled a good deal better than four well filed?

Mr. Scott-Oh, yes, but there is a limit to the supply of manure upon most farms.