Tillage

“ Tillage operations on such land are easily interrupted by rain, and the period always much limited in which they can be prosecuted at all; the compactness and toughness of the soil renders each operation more arduous, and its repetition more necessary than in the case of dry land. The surface must necessarily be thrown into ridges, and the furrows and cross-cuts cleared out after each process of tillage, and upon this surface-drainage as much labour is expended in twenty years as would suffice to make under-drains enough to lay it permanently dry. ”

“ Jethro Tull, two hundred years ago, discovered that thorough tillage of the soil gave crops that in some cases could not be produced by the addition of manure, and he came to the erroneous conclusion that "tillage is manure." In recent days we have learned the value of tillage in conserving moisture and in enabling plants to reach maturity with the least amount of water, and we may be tempted to believe that "tillage is moisture." ”

“ The system of tillage, therefore, resembles market-gardening rather than the broad method of cultivation common in Europe and America. The land is too valuable to be devoted to pasture, and the forests nearly everywhere have been sacrificed to tillage to such an extent that the material for the enormously thick native coffins has now to be imported from abroad.
Streams and irrigating-ditches were so frequent that we were continually saturated with water or covered with mud. ”

“ Light soils are handled differently from heavy soils; and much depends also upon the season of the year in which the Tillage is done. In all ordinary soils, the effort should be made to work them deep, so that there is a deep reservoir for the storage of moisture and a large area in which roots can work. Subsequent Tillage throughout the growing season is performed very largely for the purpose of keeping the top of the soil loose and fine so that the moisture from beneath cannot pass off into the atmosphere. ”

“ Good tillage in such a case demands the pruning of the roots and the airing of the soil when the ground is dry enough to permit such stirring, and the plants then extend their roots in the lower soil where they rightly belong. Judgment is required to decide when such tillage is desirable, but judgment is needed all the time in farming. When a continued period of wet weather affects the position of the plant-roots, it rarely is advisable not to risk deeper tillage than is given in a normal season. ”

“ Along with good tillage must go crop-rotation and good drainage. A supply of organic matter will prevent heavy rains from washing the soil and carrying away plant food. Drainage will aid good tillage in allowing air to circulate between the soil particles and in arranging plant food so that plants can use it. ”

“ And because ’tis morally impossible, the same Figure and Dimensions should happen twice to any one Part, we need not wonder, how the Earth, every time of Tilling, should afford a new internal Superficies (or artificial Pasture) ; and that the till’d Soil has in it an inexhaustible Fund, which by a sufficient Division (being capable of an infinite one) may be produc’d.
Tillage (as well as Dung) is beneficial to all Sorts of Land [24] . ”

“ There must be moisture to hold the food in solution. There must be air. There must be destruction of plants that would be competitors of the ones desired. A soil rarely is in prime condition for the planting and growth of any crop without some change in its structure by means of tillage, and it does not remain in the best condition for any long period of time. If the number of plants required per acre for a crop is relatively small, tillage of the soil is continued after planting. If the necessary number makes tillage impossible, there is some loss in conditions most favorable to the plant. ”

“ Last year, by force and violence, the landholders of this division were made to agree to an assessment upon the lands in tillage of ten thousand and five hundred rupees, of which not six thousand can be collected. The other three divisions are in the same state. Not one-tenth of the land is in tillage, nor are one-tenth of the villages peopled. The soil is really the finest that I have seen in India; and I have seen no part of India in which so small a portion of the surface is unfit for tillage. The moisture rises to the surface just as it is required ”

“ When such soils are first brought under tillage it is necessary to use a large amount of water from the canals, in order to wash away the old store of alkali. After that a comparatively small contribution will often keep the soil in excellent condition for agriculture. ”

“ The more important tillage tools and tillage operations we studied in Chapters XI and XII. They will be noticed here only in connection with their influence over soil water, for in the regulation of this important factor in soil fertility the other conditions of fertility are also very largely controlled.
IMPORTANCE OF SOIL WATER
"Of all the factors influencing the growth of plants, water is beyond doubt the most important," and the maintaining of the proper amount of soil water is one of the most important problems of the thinking farmer in controlling the fertility of his soil. ”

“ I have great faith in the benefits of thorough tillage—or, in other words, of breaking up, pulverizing, and exposing the soil to the decomposing action of the atmosphere. I look upon a good, strong soil as a kind of storehouse of plant-food. ”

“ By Dung we are limited to the Quantity of it we can procure, which in most Places is too scanty: But by Tillage, we can inlarge our Field of subterranean Pasture without Limitation, tho’ the external Surface of it be confin’d within narrow Bounds: Tillage may extend the Earth’s internal Superficies, in proportion to the Division of its Parts; and as Division is infinite, so may that Superficies be.
Every Time the Earth is broken by any Sort of Tillage, or Division, there must arise some new Superficies of the broken Parts, which never has been open before. ”

“ Certainly the land should always be well tilled, but tillage makes the soil poorer, not richer. Tillage liberates plant food but adds none. "A little farm well tilled" is all right if well manured, but it should not be forgotten that the men who consider "Ten Acres Enough" are market gardeners, or truck farmers, who are not satisfied until in the course of six or eight years they have applied to their land about two hundred tons of manure per acre, all made from crops grown on other lands. ”

“ The repetition of tillage here reprobated, refers, I presume, to the numerous ploughing given by many English farmers, at that period, preparatory to the putting in of their crops; which the single, deep and "efficacious" ploughing of Arbuthnot rendered unnecessary.—Were our ploughing for Indian Corn and Root Crops alike deep and efficacious, before planting, shallow tillage (called horse hoeing) with light ploughs, during their growth, would suffice.
[13] In Scotland their peat-lands are called peat-mosses. ”

“ Others went to mend the occupation-road which runs along the field, and through the half-acre. On the south side, and in the half-acre, there is scarcely a stone, and the tillage is perfectly easy. Our way is to dig two spits deep, straight down, manure richly, and leave abundant space between both the plants and the rows. Hence our fine roots, and our weight of produce. ”

“ We must grow large crops on the rich land and use them, at least in part, to make manure for the poorer portions of the farm. Drainage and good tillage will convert much of our low, alluvial lands into a perfect mine of wealth. And much of our high, rolling land consists of strong loam, abounding in plant food. Such land requires little more than thorough tillage, with perhaps two hundred pounds of superphosphate per acre, to enable it to produce good grain crops. ”

“ Nations rise and fall; so does the productive power of vast areas of land. Better drainage, better seed, better implements, and more thorough tillage, all tend toward larger crops, but they also tend toward ultimate land ruin, for the removal of larger crops only hastens soil depletion. ”

“ The tillage to which the ground was subjected for the purposes of the fruit farm much improved its character, and in dry weather it presents as good a tilth as could be desired. Chemical analyses of the soil from different parts of the field show such wide differences that it is admitted to be by no means an ideal one for experimental purposes. ”

“ We are naturally so lacking in judicial [Pg 48] temper that opinion has swung violently from favor to disfavor. As most soils need organic matter, we seize upon the thought that anything evidently inclined to use it up is an evil. The purpose of tillage is in no small degree to bring about disintegration and resulting exhaustion of vegetable matter. The latter is a storehouse of plant food, and some of it is needed to feed the crop desired. Tillage is no more to be commended for this purpose than a quantity of lime equivalent in power to do the needed work. ”

“ Length of Cultivation.—Most tilled crops grow rapidly until they shade and mulch the soil. Tillage should continue, if possible, until this occurs. The exception is in the case of orchard trees and other plants that should not have their period of growth extended late in the fall. Good tillage tends to increase the lateness of a crop by encouraging growth. The new wood of trees may not become hardy enough to withstand the frost of winter if tillage is continued. Early maturity is hastened by exhaustion of soil moisture and plant-food. ”

“ Such Plants as Cabbages, Turneps, Carrots, and Potatoes, when they are designed only for fatting of Cattle, will not be injured by Dung, Tillage, and Hoeing all together, which will make the Crops the greater, and the Cattle will like them never the worse.
And common Tillage alone is not sufficient for many Sorts of Corn, especially Wheat, which is the King of Grains.
Very few Fields can have the Conveniency of a sufficient Supply of Dung, to enable them to produce half the Wheat those will do near Cities, where they have Plenty of it. ”

“ Constant tillage hastens the decay of organic matter in the soil. Hence any method or system of cropping which does not occasionally return to the soil a new supply of humus tends to weaken the powers of the soil toward water.
All of the operations and practices which influence soil water also affect the other conditions necessary to root growth; namely, texture, ventilation, heat, and plant food, and those operations and practices which properly control and regulate soil water to a large degree control and regulate soil fertility. ”

“ It is especially worthy of observation, however, that sandy soils are the most readily amenable of any to the operation of tillage. If we cannot take much out of them, we can put any amount into them, and it is always necessary to calculate where the process of enrichment is to stop. It is not less worthy of observation that sandy soils can be rendered capable of producing almost every kind of crop, save cereals and pulse, and even these can be secured where there is some basis of peat or loam or clay with the sand. ”

“ We are accustomed to draw a sharp line between foods and stimulants, and to condemn the latter. To stimulate is to rouse to activity. Tillage does not add one pound of plant-food to the soil, and its office is to enable plants to draw material out of the soil. ”

“ It need hardly be added that the entire task of cultivation is also greatly facilitated; not only because drained soils can be plowed within a few hours after the cessation of rains, as against the same number of days that would have to elapse in the undrained areas; but because tillage is easier, and less draft is required, even when it is carried to a much greater depth. ”

“ With us, the early sowing of winter grain is of the first importance, to insure a full crop, early ripe, and most secure from mildew. The husbandry of Mr. Ducket, already described, justifies the practice. I know it is already common amongst us; but without the deep tillage which enabled him to put in seven crops with only four ploughings. With such complete tillage, of a soil so enriched as to yield forty or fifty bushels of Indian corn to the acre, grown on a level, without hills or ridges; and if, in harvesting the corn, it be cut close to the ground ”

“ Effects of Tillage.—That these figures can be only approximations is obvious from the consideration that one and the same soil will vary materially in its volume-weight according to its temporary condition of greater or less compactness. After land has been beaten by winter rains, its volume-weight will be found to have materially increased from the well-tilled condition brought about by thorough cultivation. This difference is strikingly seen when, in plowing, the height of the ground on the land side is compared with that of the turned furrow-slice in well conditioned loamy land. ”

“ The crop-producing power of some lands is lowered even in regions where the rainfall is sufficient, because these lands are not properly prepared by tillage and the addition of organic matter to absorb and hold the water that comes to them, or part of the water may be lost or wasted by lack of proper after-tillage or after-cultivation. ”