Weekly New Oregon plain dealer. (New Oregon, Howard County, Iowa) 1866-1867, 1867-02-22
The Art Of Letting Land
Alone.

The Art Of Letting Land
Alone.
Notwithstanding our farmers have
learned many important lessons dur
ing the last dozeu years. and have
made wonderful progress in almost
every branch of husbandry, there
yet remains one lesson of great i'm
portance that many have not learned,
and one which must be not only &C
quired, but practiced, before a mar
can become good farmer. It does
not consist in doing, but in NOT Do
ING not in cultivating land, but in
letting it alone-and we judge it is
an art as difficult to practice as it is
to learn, and more difficult to learn,
perhaps, than almost anything else
in the line of the farmers practice.
The course of many farmers in
this state, even at this day, is ruin
Gus to the land they till, and instead
of becoming better, it is growing
worse from year to year. Land
needs rest. No matter how much it
is manured, it needs to be let alone
occasionally. True, most soils will
produce crop every year, provided
the land is given a good dressing,
but the same soil becomes in much
better manner fitted for the same or
other crops, by having seasons of
rest. Hence rotation of crops is
recommended, whereby the same
field produces different crops each
year, and has an opportunity of
RESTING during the course.
We are much surprised that many
farmers will persist in cultivating
over and over again, the same fields,
often with the same crop, yeor after
year, instead of digging into their
new land. They need to learn the
art Of letting land alone. Some
farmers in cultivating their lands do
not get enough in return to pay for
the manure and labor which their
crops cost. Such should practice
letting land alone, until they can
cultivate it in such way as to
make it pay all the expenses, pro-
duce good returns, and be in better
condition each year than before.
There are farmers who are always
doing too much. They are constant
l. III
business, and, to use a common ex-
preston, "get more than they can
carry They attempt to 60 over
not cultivate, for their practice is q
disgrace to the name-too much
land, and as consequence their
work is but half done their land
half manured, and they harvest but
half q crop. Let them practice the
art of letting land alone by so do
ing, their work will be easier, their
crops larger. and their farm will in
crease in value. 1t is better for
land to lay still and rest than to be
half manured and half titled.
Fallows are not much practiced
among our farmers-not SO much,
we Judge, as they were some years
ago. 1t is an excellent practice for
some soils, and we wonder it is not
oftener resorted to where land must
be "let alone'' for some cause Or
other. Besides giving an oppor-
tunity for destroying noxious weeds,
which may be ploughed under and
thus add to the fertility of the soil,
land which lies in fallow is benefit
ted by the action Of the atmosphere,
and the influences of rain, frost, SUP
shine, and wind. In the old coun-
try it is .practiced to a great eA.ent,
and the soil is thereby render cd more
fertile. Itreceives oxyger, carbonic
acid and ammonia from the air, and
these the land retains for the future
use of crops, besides rendering solu-
bic many of the valuable mineral
salts contained in the soil. These
salts--such as potash, alumina,
magnesia and iron, often soda and
ime-(all prime elements in the
food of plants) are rendered soluble,
and therefore fitted to become food
for plants, wlNn land is turned uI
and left in contact with the atmos.
phere. For these and other reasons,
many of our farmers need to under.
stand the art of letting their lano
alone. -Maine Farmer.