Alva Agee

“ Tillage.—Man's ability to assist nature in the work of production finds a notable illustration in the matter of tillage. Its purpose is to provide right physical condition of the soil for the particular class of plants that should be produced, while destroying the competition of other plants that are for the time only weeds. Most soils become too compact when left unstirred. The air cannot enter freely, plant-roots cannot extend in every direction for food, the water from rains cannot enter easily, there is escape of the moisture in the ground, and weathering of the soil proceeds too slowly. ”

“ The organic sources of fertility, such as slaughter-house refuse, are containers of plant-food as surely as is stable manure. The inorganic sources, such as acid phosphate and muriate of potash, are containers of plant-food as surely as is animal bone or blood. There is no line that may be drawn to debar any substance that supplies plant-food profitably and contains no compound harmful to the soil. ”

“ If it is necessary to plant a field that is deficient in fertility, expending labor and money for tillage and seed, the only rational course is to furnish all needed plant-food for a good yield. There may be little net profit from the one crop, but there will be more than could be obtained without the liberal fertilization, and the soil will be better equipped for another crop. This applies, in a notable degree, to fertilization of a wheat crop with which timothy and clover will be seeded. ”

“ We know that by such feeding we can return to the fields at least four fifths of all the plant-food taken out by the crops, and we loosely reason that such a scheme is demanded by nature. The maintenance of fertility involves good arithmetic, and a plant must have certain weights of mineral elements at command before it can grow, but it is not true that the productive power of land is chiefly dependent upon the return to it in manure of all the fertility removed by its crops. If this were true, meat and other animal products would be the sole food supply of the world's markets. ”

“ Grass is a heavy feeder, like corn, and makes good use of nitrogen. Its roots fill the soil so that no loss attends the use of manure. When the supply is given the grass, after the harvest of the second crop of clover and during the winter, the timothy can make a rank growth. The part of the plant above ground has corresponding development below ground. Not only does a large increase in the hay crop result, but the heavy mass of grass roots, the aftermath, and the remains of the manure provide a great amount of fertility for the corn which follows. ”

“ It is rather idle to say that the annual product of a horse in the form of manure is $30, or more or less, even when an analysis shows that the nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash contained in it are worth that sum when valued at the market prices of those plant constituents. If the total amount of fertility found in the voidings of all the animals of the farm were provided in a pile of commercial fertilizer containing the same amount of each plant constituent, its worth to the farmer would depend upon his ability to convert all that fertility into crops at a profit. ”

“ If a soil is thin, or heavy, or light, the use of a ton of manure in this way can bring greater returns than under any other circumstances in general farming. It supplies some fertility, and it puts the surface soil into good physical condition for young plants. Land deficient in humus forms a crust after a rain, and a tiny plant suffers. A light dressing of manure, well mixed with the soil, tends to prevent this hardening of the surface and loss of water. There is no other form of fertility that can fully replace manure, for either compact or leachy land. ”

“ The grass needs its first leaves to enable it to make rapid growth, and the first grass of spring is not nutritious.
Close grazing is harmful, exposing the soil to the sun and robbing it of moisture. When winter comes, there should be sufficient grass to serve as a mulch to the roots. It acts like a coat of manure, giving new life to the plants the next spring. Good sods are not easily or quickly made, and when they have been secured on land unfit for the plow, their value measures the value of the land itself. ”

“ Fertilizers.—When a crop is fed to livestock, and all the manure is returned to the land that produced the crop without loss by leaching or fermentation, there is a return to the land of four fifths of the fertility, and a good form of organic matter is supplied. A portion of the crops cannot be fed upon the farm, or otherwise the human race would have only animal products for food. The welfare of the people demands that a vast amount of the soil's crops be sold from the farms producing them. ”

“ When soils have been robbed through the greed of man, nature is handicapped in her effort to restore fertility by the absence of the best seeds. Man's intelligent assistance is a necessity. Successful farming involves such assistance of nature that the percentage of vegetable matter in the soil shall be made high and kept high. There must be such selection of plants for this purpose that the organic matter will be rich in fertility, and at the same time their growth must fit into a scheme of crop production that can yield profit to the farmer. ”

“ If clover does grow, the succeeding crop of timothy may be heavy. If clover does not grow, the timothy is not so heavy. The seeding to grass is made partly because a tilled crop would not pay, and partly because a hay crop is needed. It comes in where other crops cannot come with profit, and it produces fairly well, or very well, the first year it occupies the ground by itself. With little or no aid from manure or commercial fertilizer, it adds much to the supply of organic matter in the soil, and it produces a hay crop that may be made into manure or converted into cash. ”

“ Very often a land-owner says, "I have a dozen kinds of soil in every field." This is true in a way, it may be, but if all the field has had the same treatment in the past, the probability is that the fertilizer which is best for one part of the field will be quite good for the other parts. The likeness in characteristics that permits the land to be cropped as one field gives some assurance of likeness in plant-food needs, even where the proportion of clay and sand varies and the color is not the same. ”

“ It is a good practice to use the early summer in making conditions better for an August seeding, if the land has fallen below a profitable state of productiveness. A growth may be plowed down in time for firming the seed-bed, or it may be cut into the surface soil with a harrow, or the time may be used in freeing inert plant-food and destroying weed seed. On better soils, and in warm latitudes, a crop for hay may be removed, especially in the case of the cowpea in the south, and the stubble prepared for seeding by use of the cutaway or disk harrow. ”

“ Wherever the cropping has been hard, and manure has not gone back to the land, the growth in stalk and leaves of the plant is deficient. The color is light. Inability of a soil to produce a strong growth of corn, a large amount of straw, or a heavy hay crop, is indicative of lack of nitrogen in nearly every instance.
The legumes, such as clover, and the stable manures are rich in nitrogen, and when the scheme of farming involves their use on all the land of the farm, no need of purchased nitrogen may arise in the production of staple crops. ”

“ Men who wanted to do a legitimate business welcomed protection from the unscrupulous competition that dishonest men employed. The memory of some of the frauds perpetrated lingers, and causes a questioning to-day that is unnecessary. All fertilizer-control laws afford a good degree of legal protection to the buyer, although in most states they do not demand a clearness and fullness in statements of analyses that would be helpful to many, and they fail to require that sources of plant-food be given. ”

“ As has been stated, every user of commercial fertilizer should learn what a pound of plant-food in unmixed material would cost him, selecting the common materials that are the only chief sources. If he can buy a pound of nitrogen in nitrate of soda or sulphate of ammonia, a pound of phosphoric acid in acid phosphate or steamed bone, and a pound of potash in muriate or sulphate of potash for less than they would cost in the factory-mixed goods offered him, allowing to himself a dollar or so a ton for the labor of mixing, it is only good business to buy the unmixed materials. ”

“ If the farmer could see his way clear to cut down the quantity of seed wheat or oats used on a fertile soil, the catch of grass would be better, but the small-grain crop is not very profitable at the best, and the owner does not like deliberately to limit it.
A greater amount of failure is due to an inadequate supply of fertility. The grass does not suffer so much from over-shading as it does from starvation, both during the growth of the grain and after harvest. The stronger grain plants appropriate the scanty stock of available fertility, and leave the grass and clover nearly helpless. ”

“ Setting aside the impression gained from the dissimilarity in the so-called corn, potato, wheat, and grass fertilizers on the market, the farmer knows that the soil which is in a good state of fertility is best for any of them, and if the soil is hard-run, it should have its plant-food supply supplemented. The hard-run soil usually is lacking in available supplies of all three plant-food constituents. If a fertilizer containing 3 per cent of nitrogen, 10 per cent of phosphoric acid, and 6 per cent of potash serves the wheat well, it will serve the timothy that starts in the wheat. ”

“ Two influences favor such undue dependence upon a disk harrow that a soil may become shallow: the cost of preparing the seed-bed is reduced, and the saving in moisture may give a better stand of plants when the harrow takes the place of the plow. The immediate productiveness of a crop is not an assurance that the method is right: consideration for the good of the land must be shown. Depth of soil is a requirement of a good agriculture, and deep plowing is a means to that end. ”

“ As the air becomes heated, the open spaces left by the plowing serve to hasten the escape of moisture. If a cover crop is plowed down late in the spring, the material in the bottom of the furrow makes the land less resistant to drouth because the union of the top soil with the subsoil is less perfect, and capillary attraction is retarded. It is usually good practice to sacrifice some of the growth of a cover crop, even when organic matter is badly needed, and to plow fairly early in the spring in order that the moisture supply may be conserved. ”

“ The value of heavy sods to a soil cannot be overestimated. They not only give to a farm a prosperous appearance, but our country's agriculture would be on a much safer basis if heavy coverings of grass were more universal. We do not hold the legumes in too high esteem, but the emphasis placed upon their ability to appropriate nitrogen from the air has caused some land-owners to fail in appreciation of the aid to soil fertility that may be rendered by the grasses. One often hears the statement that they can add nothing to the soil, and this is serious error. ”

“ When crop-producing power decreases, and the farmer begins to seek a commercial fertilizer to repair the loss, he finds that bone-dust or acid phosphate is serviceable. The resulting increase in yield often leads to such sole dependence upon this fertilizer that clover and manure are disregarded, the percentage of humus is allowed to drop, and finally the fertilizer is brought into disrepute. The need of phosphoric acid is so common that it is the sole plant-food in much fertilizer, and the dominant element in practically all the remainder on the market. ”

“ The free use of organic matter to maintain the supply of humus defers the time when commercial fertilizers should be used. Good tillage frees the potential plant-food of the soil, and delays the day of necessary purchase. The farm so situated that it can have all its products fed upon it is longer independent of outside help. The profitable use of feeding-stuffs from other farms is a safe way of escaping the direct purchase of fertilizers, although it is a transfer of fertility to the farm as surely as the employment of fertilizers, and is not a method that may have general adoption. ”

“ We do not really need to know why an occasional soil is supplied with the bacteria of a legume new to it. We have learned that the bacteria of sweet clover serve alfalfa, and this accounts for the inoculation of some regions in the east. We believe that some bacteria are carried in the dust on the seed, and produce partial inoculation. Other causes are more obscure. The cowpea trails on the ground, and carries its bacteria more successfully than the soybean. Most legumes require a soil artificially inoculated when brought into a new region, failing otherwise in some degree to make full growth. ”