Nebraska advertiser. [volume] (Brownville, Nemaha County, N.T. [Neb.]) 1856-1882, 1860-09-13
AGRICULTURAL,



It has long been a settled fact in ragri
culture, that the greatest return from tht
soil is generally secured, not by. continu
Ously growing one plant, even though j
command the highest market price, bu
/ by an alienation or rotation of crops
There is no difficulty in cultivating am
agricultural plant successfully for any
number Of years on the same ground, pro
vided enough beexpended in putting tht
soil into the right physical and chemica
condition. But such procedure is usually
more expensive than alternating the crop.
The reasons of this are mostly contained
in what has preceded, but few words o
explanation may still be useful. When
a light virgin soil comes under the hand
of the farmer, it yields good crops for q
few years, bat then subsidies to a Low
state of productiveness. At first it may
have yielded wheat; when no longer able
to support that crop, it may still give fail
crops of barley; the next year if put tc
turnips or potatoes, itmay seem to recover
It's fertility somewhat, and produce a good
burden of roots; but now it will not yield
again a good crop of wheat, though pro-
badly clover would flourish on it. The
causes of such facts lie partly in the soil
and partly in the plants themselves.
As for the soil, as already stated, Its
composition and texture are perpetually
changing. The quantity of organic mat
ter especially, rapidly diminishes when
the soil is under cultivation, and the solu.
bic mineral matters are in most cases re-
moved by cropping, faster than supplied
by weathering or disintegration. AS for
cultivated plants, practical men have
classed them according to their demands
on the soil. as follows: Enriching crops
clover, lucern and esparsette. Non-ex-
hausting crops, peas and beans, also ce-
reals when cut green. Exhausting crops
cereals, beets, turnips, carrots and pota-
toes. Very exhausting crops, tobacco
fax, hemp, and hops. Among the causes
of the different exhaustive effect of vari-
Gus plants, are the following: l. Differ
ent extent or structure of roots and
leaves. The enriching crops expose to
the air an enormous surface of foliage
and throw out very large, long and nu-
merous roots. The cereals have much
less leaf and root surface. 2. Different
rapidity of growth. Clover and root crops
continue in foliage during the whole
season while the cereals riprn in July
or August. 3. Periods or crises OF
growth seed production. Plants which
ripen seed, require better soil than those
which only produce foliage, because the
rapiditv of assimilation seems to increase
when the reproductive function comes in
to activity. Plants which ripen seed, may
require richer soil, not because they
remove more from it, but because they
need more in given time. a. Some
crops are entirely removed from the soil
as fax; while others leave the ground
! filled with an enormous mass of roots, as
clover; or strewn with stalks and foliage
as the potato and beet. 5. The quantity
of ash ingredients removed from the sol
by different plants, is widely unlike. In
/ the light of the above statements, it is
easy to see that when a soil refuses to
WELD remunerative crops of sballow.
rooted and quick-growing wheat, it may
still produce luxuriant growth Of deep
rooted, large-leaved, and slow-growing
clover. 1t is evident, too, that when a
clover-ley is broken up and sown to wheat
this grain may yield well, because the
decaying turf and roots are ready source
of every kind of plant-food This pre-
paration of the soil for en- exhausting
crop, by the Intervention of one of easy
growth, is shown in the practice of geen
manuring, which is, in fact, a rotation Of
crops; but is also fertilizing process,
because the first crop is entngny, sacrificed
for the sake of succeeding ones. Green
manuring consists in blowing uuder clover
buckwheat, spurry other crops, when in
in blossom, so that the soil shall be en-
riched by their decay. As these plants,
(the last named especially will grow on
poor soils, it is possible by their help to
reclaim the lightest, and bring them up
to fair degree of productiveness in the
course Of few years.