50 Bulletin No. 155
The party furnishing Miracle recommended two pecks »
per acre, claiming great stooling power for it.
Fertllvjzers For Wheat
The Experiment Station receives many letters asking
what is the best fertilizer for wheat. There is no best
fertilizer for wheat. What would produce good results on
one type of soil might fail to give any results at all on other
soils. There is only one safe rule, so far as fertility is
concerned, for producing good crops of any kind, and that is
to keep up the fertility of the soil by a judicious rotation of ‘
crops, the use of all the manure that can be produced on the
farm, and the purchase of whatever mineral elements of plant
food the soil may be deficient in. For example, the soil in
the central Blue Grass counties is rich in phosphorus, and
the use of phosphate on such lands, when in good condition,
does not give profitable results. But most of the lands of
the State outside of this region are deficient in phosphorus
and the use of phosphatic fertilizers usually gives good
results. Practically all soils of the State contain sufficient
potassium, with perhaps the exception of the Blue Grass
region, and it is, as a rule, not necessary to buy this element
of plant food. It must be remembered, though, that in
order to render the mineral elements of plant food in the soil .
available, a good supply of organic matter must be kept up,
the decay of which renders them available. _
. Any soil may soon be rendered dehcient in nitrogen for the
reason that the nitrogen of the soil is contained in the organic
matter which is easily destroyed by cultivation. The supply
of nitrogen can be kept up profitably only by keeping a
generous supply of organic matter in the soil. .
The usual practice in fertilizing wheat in this State is to ‘
use 200 pounds or less (usually less) of a complete fertilizer ,
containing approximately 8 per cent of phosphoric acid, 1.65
per cent of nitrogen and 2 per cent of potash. This would
give 16 pounds phosphoric acid, 3.3 pounds nitrogen and 4
pounds of potash per acre, whereas a thirty-bushel wheat
' crop, including the straw, removes from the soil approxi- ·