Document Type
Full Issue
Publication Date
6-1931
Abstract
It was the task of the pioneers to "subdue" the land. To them, this meant removing the brush, opening the ditches, and reducing the coarse sod to a fine mellow seedbed. They performed their task. Then for one to three generations the sons, grandsons, and the great grandsons of the pioneers made the land feed them. The idea of "subduing" the land was so firmly established in the West, that few realized the soil was being depleted in a manner somewhat similar to a bank account always drawn on but never replenished. Highly productive land is able to stand such a drain for some time, while less productive land is depleted sooner. Whether the land is of high, of medium, or of low productivity, it is only a matter of time until it ceases to yield profitable crops unless precautions are taken to maintain its productivity.
Two of the most effective means of maintaining, or restoring, the productivity of the land are an intelligent cropping system and the use of manures and fertilizers. Commercial fertilizers are already beginning to have their place on many of our soils and will have a more important place as years go by. Commercial fertilizers are most profitable, however, as part of a scheme in which crop rotation and farm manure are first made to do as much as possible in the way of supplying organic matter, making mineral nutrients available, and maintaining a favorable nitrogen balance. It is with the effects of crop rotations and farm manuring that this publication deals.
Recommended Citation
Stewart, George and Pittman, D. W., "Bulletin No. 228 - Twenty Years of Rotation and Manuring Experiments at Logan, Utah" (1931). UAES Bulletins. Paper 195.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/uaes_bulletins/195