Spirit of the age. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1849-1865, 1853-09-14
From the Farmers Journal.
Farmers, do not turn your Stock upon your
Fields

Ii has been a very common practice a.
mong the farmers of this State, after gath
erlng the crops from their fields, to turn
their stock upon them and let them eat the
stalks and vines. There has. in our op;n-
ion, been nothing that has so much condu-
ced to the general exhaustion of our lands
as tins practice, although we have been
very often told by farmers that they reear-
ded 1t as farm economy. All writers up-
on Agricultural Chemistry readily admit
that the stalks and vines Of plants must be
left upon the field, in order that. by their
decomposition, they may return to the soil
the elements for the reproduction of sue
ceeding crops, The various plants we cul-
tlvate are composed of elements. . nart of
which are mineral aud a part vegetable,
and the mineral must necessarily be afFor.
ded to the plant by the soil. Now. is it
not very plain to be seen, that if year after
these mineral elements are taken away from
the soil, without leaving any means for a
re-supply, that in few years the soil in
which they once existed will be deficient
IN themE A very large quantity, it is
true, are carried away in the crop; but if,
IN addition to this, the stalk and vine are
consumed by stock, from what source can
the soil obtain them again, unless they be
supplied in the form of manureP Our
readers will recollect that in the last num-
Der OF our paper we answered a question
submitted by farmer from Greene county.
IN which we ventured to account for the
failure OF the pea crop upon the land that
tornerly J was well adapted to the cultiva-
ton OF the pea, This exhaustion had no
doubt been caused by this very practice of
turning stock upon the fields in the fall.
as farmers say, to eat peas, and there.
ty save them from Wasting" In the vine
or stalk of the pea is contained twenty
seven per cent of the carbonate of lime
and these being consumed year after wear
by cattle, horses, and hogs, it is but rea-
sonable to suppose that the land would fail
to produce the pea luxuriantly. The ex-
haustion of land by this practice cannot be
perceived very readily in the beginning,
and hence the continuation of it but eve
~ farmer may rest assured that he is sus
tanning very great damage by continuing
the practice. Let us now look into the sa-
wing that IS SO generally believed to be
caused by turning stock upon the 6eids.-
Practical demonstration has proved the fact,
that Py giving proper attention to any kind
OF stock IN the way of furnishing materials
tor making and saving manure, that the
4 taod eesSsa,ssod NH ho rad -cs.- il
turn made by the manure to the land. If
this be true, and we do not doubt it in the
least, the practice of suffering stock to run
at large upon fields must be bad one in
deed. It is true that hogs turned upon a
field in the fall upon which peas have been
sown, will become fat but the manure
from them may be said to be almost lost,
for it is deposited in every direction and
upon the surface of the land, and its volatile
properties, by far the most important, are
scattered " to the four winds" AS we
said before, the hog improves at the expense
of the land, which is greatly injured, and
without the application of manure, will fail
to produce # the hog were kept up in a
close pen, and the proper attention paid to
the collecting of materials for making man-
ure, the land might be much improved by
the application of this manure, and not as
in the other case, at the expense of the hog.
The farmer would find it much to his in-
f"raaf = to feer oVarR kind Of stock from his
fields, and thereby leave upon them the
materials for the reproduction of other
: crops.