Cover crop

“ But if the grain is removed, and nothing resupplies the drain of phosphates which it makes from the soil, the soil will in due time, according to the original quantities in the soil, cease to yield grain, although the straw may be admirable. But if both straw and kernel were every year burned upon the [Pg 150] field, as grass and its seed is upon the prairies, wheat would grow for a thousand years in succession. The same is true of corn, of potatoes, and of any annual crop. When the annual growth is restored to the soil, it is repossessed of all its treasure which had been loaned for a season. ”

“ It will grow on any ordinary garden soil which is well drained, but, when possible, heavy subsoil with light sand or loam above it should be selected, as it will invariably produce an earlier crop each year than heavy ground. The soil should slope to the south or southwest, and a shelter from the northeast is also desirable. For our large market bed we used land that had been under cultivation for two years. The 113 preceding crops had been corn, oats and potatoes, so it had been thoroughly worked. ”

“ When the seed is ripe the tops can be clipped, and the straw left until fall to mature. You now have your seed and hay in two crops of equal value; in case of clover, you mow the first crop for hay, the second for seed; you in both cases get better seed and hay with less labor and expense than grain crops, at the same time leaving the soil clothed with a coat of straw, for the coming season, which will increase the value of the soil for crops, make fine pastures and fine stock, while it fits the land for fine grain. ”

“ Early maturing varieties can be brought in between main crops of the rotation in warm latitudes. The growth prevents the leaching of plant-food, shades the ground, adds nitrogen to the soil, smothers weeds, and produces material that is valuable as feed for livestock or an addition of organic matter to the soil. When the time that can be devoted to the crop is short, an early variety should be selected because its vines are far more valuable to the soil than an equal volume of a rank-growing variety that is not near maturity. ”

“ Good herbage will grow on bog thus treated, but as much as possible should at once be put into root-crops, with farmyard manure for potatoes and turnips. The more lime you give the better will be your crop, and, treated thus, there is no doubt that even during the first year, land so reclaimed will yield remunerative crops. People ask, ‘But will not the whole thing go back to bog?’ Of course it will if not kept under proper rotation, which we find to be one of five years—namely, roots followed by oats, laid down with clover and grass seed, which remains for two years. ”

“ Apply from year to year well-rotted compost to the field in quantity sufficient fully to counterbalance the annual abstraction by your crops. Make it a law inflexible and relentless that no animal shall be let into this orchard to forage, or for any purpose whatever but to draw on manures, to till the soil, and to draw away the crops. Thus until the first blossoms begin to appear on the trees; then lay down to grass without grain, unless it be a crop of Rye or Oats to be cut and carried off for feed when not more than half [Pg 144] grown, leaving the ground to the young grass. ”

“ There are large areas, dry and cracked on the surface, where the soil is moist three and four feet below the surface in the dry season. By keeping the surface broken and well pulverized the moisture rises sufficiently to insure a crop. Many Western farmers have found out this secret of cultivation, and more will learn in time the good sense of not spreading themselves over too large an area; that forty acres planted and cultivated will give a [Pg 106] better return than eighty acres planted and neglected. ”

“ In the afternoons and evenings, we took breezy gallops through the forests, along the boundary sward of the fields, across the rich black soil of that third of the land which, in the "three-field" system of cultivation, is allowed to lie fallow after it has borne a crop of winter grain, rye, and one of summer grain, oats. ”

“ Three years ago, in a midland county, a field of good land, in good cultivation, and richly manured, produced a heavy crop of cabbages. In November of that year we saw that field broken into in several places, and at the depth of four feet the soil (a tenacious marl, fully stiff enough for brick-earth) was occupied by the roots of cabbage, not sparingly—not mere capillæ—but fibres of the size of small pack-thread. A farmer manures a field of four or five inches of free soil reposing on a retentive clay, and sows it with wheat. ”

“ Good Soil Conditions.—When the grasses and clovers desired for a sod are sown with small grain, there is competition between them and the grain crop for fertility, moisture, and light. The grain crop is the one that will produce the income the following summer, and naturally is given right of way. The amount of seed is used that experience teaches is best for a maximum yield of grain. Usually this gives a thicker stand of plants than is best for the tiny grass and clover plants that often are struggling for existence down under the taller grain. ”

“ No one recommends keeping a young orchard in grass. We all know that young apple trees do far better when the land is occupied with corn, potatoes, beans, or some other crop, which can be cultivated, than they do on land occupied with wheat, barley, oats, rye, buckwheat, or grass and clover. ”

“ The rotation of crops means—taking a surface crop, such as wheat, oats, maize, &c., off the land, and then ploughing and planting a root crop, say turnips, potatoes, &c., &c. One of the best ways to manure a field impoverished by successive cropping without rest or manure is by sowing broadcast some such crop as peas, vetches, turnips, or any quick growing tender leaf plant, and when it is a few weeks old, or when the plants have leafed out well, plough it under and leave the field fallow till the following spring. ”

“ I believe these lands would make a great deal if we understood the cutting and curing of hay, for the grass grows most luxuriantly if the land is ploughed and left, but the curing of hay is unknown to the rice-field darky. 68
Our uplands are very fertile and adapted to any crop, it seems. Last year a few tried cotton and did very well without any commercial fertilizer. The only trouble is the nice cultivation cotton requires. ”

“ Possibly at the time of purchase the acre may be covered with coarse grass, weeds, or undergrowth of some kind. In this case, after the initial plowing, the cultivation for a season of some such crop as corn or potatoes may be of great advantage in clearing the land, and the proceeds of the crop would partially meet expenses. If the aim is merely to subdue and clean the land as quickly as possible, nothing is better than buckwheat, sown thickly and plowed under just as it comes into blossom. ”

“ And yet wheat maintains its prominence on the heavier soils where a bare fallow is still found the most perfect and economical preparation for that crop, and in the eastern, south midland, and northern counties, where a dry climate and somewhat thin soil is less favourable to stock husbandry and grass. ”

“ Another reason is, that when the snow has fallen to some depth, the light timbers cannot be cut close to the ground, or the dead branches and other encumbrances collected and thrown into heaps.
We shall have about three acres ready for spring crops, provided we get a good burning of that which is already chopped near the site of the house; this will be sown with oats, pumpkins, Indian corn, and potatoes: the other ten acres will be ready for putting in a crop of wheat. So you see it will be a long time before we reap a harvest. ”

“ In ordinary farming, “larger crops per acre” means fewer acres planted or sown with grain. It means more summer fallow, more grass, clover, peas, mustard, coleseed, roots, and other crops that are consumed on the farm. It means more thorough cultivation. It means clean and rich land. It means husbanding the ammonia and nitric acid, which is brought to the soil, as well as that which is developed from the soil, or which the soil attracts from the atmosphere, and using it to grow a crop every second, third, or fourth year, instead of every year. ”

“ Cotton, corn, and oats are humus wasting crops but the pea crop which is grown the third year is plowed under, and largely, if not entirely, remedies the loss by furnishing a new supply of organic matter, and the ill effects which we noticed would follow the loss of organic matter due to the continuous growing of cotton are avoided, soil texture is preserved, soil ventilation is not injured, and the power of the soil over water is preserved. ”

“ In contrast, there are others who read and theorize too exclusively, and are inclined to assert that concentrated fertilizers supersede all others. They scout the muck swamp, the compost heap, and even the barnyard, as old-fashioned, cumbrous methods of bringing to the soil, in tons of useless matter, the essentials which they can deliver in a few sacks or barrels. On paper, they are scientific and accurate. The crop you wish to raise has constituents in certain proportions. ”

“ Why, my uncles, when they think of planting the old buck field or the widow’s acre into any crop, they first go projecting around in the soil, and, as they say, analyze it, to see what kind of a fertilizer it will require to produce the best results. ”

“ Planting.—The land should be fitted as it is for corn. Light, sandy soils require little preparation, and too often the seeding is made in a woefully careless manner, the chief dependence being placed upon sufficiently deep covering to insure germination. The ground should be fitted as well as it is for a cash crop, being made fine and smooth. ”

“ By winter, the entire ground is covered with plants, which are protected as will be explained further on. In the spring the coarsest of the covering is raked off, and between the rows is dug a space about a foot or eighteen inches wide, which serves as a path for the pickers. This path is often cheaply and quickly made by throwing two light furrows together with a corn plow. Under this system, the first crop is usually the best, and in strong lands adapted to grasses the beds often become so foul that it does not pay to leave them to bear a second year. ”

“ The portion of the farm reduced in productive power for the moment goes to grass, while the labor and fertilizers are concentrated upon the fields that are broken for grain and vegetables. The removal of all the crop at harvest, and probably the pasturing of after-math, are the only matters of interest that the fields, depleted by cultivation and seeded down to grass, have for the owner until the poor hay yield and the need of a sod for corn draw attention again to them. ”

“ For example, if the staple crop of the locality is wheat or a certain type of tobacco, select the soil best adapted to this staple crop, and another soil, if possible, in the same locality, representing considerable area of land upon which this staple crop cannot be successfully grown on account of the inferior yield, quality, or the time of ripening of the crop. The soil sampled should be, or should recently have been, under actual cultivation in the crop or crops best adapted to it, so that the real agricultural value of the land can be accurately known. ”

“ The crops that will keep our soil in the best condition. A good farmer should always be thinking of how to improve his soil. He wants his land to support him and to maintain his children after he is dead.
Since cowpeas, clover, and alfalfa add atmospheric nitrogen to the soil and at the same time are the best feeding-materials, it follows that these crops should hold an important place in [Pg 312] every system of crop-rotation. By proper rotating, by proper terracing, and by proper drainage, land may be made to retain its fertility for generations. ”

“ Heating the soil so destroys the green roots, and the ashes are so beneficial that a good crop of wheat or Indian corn may be had without ploughing or manuring. Plough shallow in autumn, cross plough deeper in the spring, harrow well, and be sure of golden crops. ”

“ More attention was then paid to corn, but without fertilizers the corn-crop also became very meagre. At last it was discovered that English clover would grow on even the exhausted fields, and that when ploughed under and planted with corn, or even wheat, wonderful crops were raised. This caused a complete change in farming methods; the farmers raised fertilizing clover, planted corn, and fed the crop to cattle and hogs. ”

“ Now, the whole matter which forms the stems, leaves, roots, cobs, and seeds of corn, where the crop is 100 bushels per acre, is not part and parcel of the soil. A harvest equal to fifty bushels per acre can be obtained without consuming over ten per cent, of earth, as compared with the weight of the crop. No plant can imbibe more of the substance of the soil in which it grows, than is dissolved in water, or rendered gaseous by the decomposition of mould. ”

“ But if you will plow such land in the fall, and expose it to the disintegrating effects of the frost, and plow it again in the spring, and let the sun and air act upon it, more or less of the organic matter in the soil will be decomposed, and the nitrogen rendered soluble. And then if you sow this land to wheat after a good summer-fallow, you will stand a chance of having a great crop. ”

“ Wheat is a plant demanding a rich soil, worked deep, and not too wet: these three things will produce a good crop on any land. We say to all farmers, raise wheat on any land that you can afford to prepare. First, if your land has not a dry subsoil, underdrain it thoroughly: water standing in the soil, and becoming cold or stagnant, is very injurious to wheat. Drainage is hardly more essential to any other crop than this. Next, plow deep. ”