Primary Agriculture and Practical Arithmetic for Use in the County Schools

by John Adam Haselwood

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1905 ... ). I low many hogs did you sell last year? About how much did they weigh? I low much phosphoric acid went with them? How much nitrogen? How much potash? 10. Did you sell any wheat? Any other grain? If?o, how much? How much of your farm went with it? To The Require pupils to furnish data for other similar problems. 7. Legumes. From a study of the table on fertilizing substances in different soils and a comparison of this table with the one on fertilizing substances in farm crops, it will be seen that nitrogen is the element which, from ordinary soils and under ordinary conditions of farming, is likely to be the soonest exhausted. Ordinarily, then, the farmer's attention should be turned to methods of restoring nitrogen. If a sufficient quantity of manure were produced on the farm, of course the best method of fertilizing would be to apply barnyard manure to the soil, as it not only contains nitrogen, but also phosphoric acid and potash, the other needed elements. But it is not always possible to do this. There is a class of plants, however, called legumes, that have the power to add nitrogen to the soil. Peas, beans, clover and alfalfa belong to this class. It is the purpose of this chapter to explain the manner in which these plants add nitrogen to the soil. The air that we breathe is composed largely of two gases--oxygen and nitrogen. Both are colorless, odorless, and invisible. About one-fifth of the air is oxygen and the other four-fifths nitrogen. It is the oxygen that causes iron to rust, coal to burn, or wood to decay. Oxygen is a very active clement, combining readily with other substances. If the air were pure oxygen, any fire once started could never be put out, and even our bodies would take fire and burn up. On the other hand, nitrogen i...

22 pages, Paperback

Published February 6, 2012