The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1867-06-14
Docs the Sell Need Rest

Our farmers quite generally held the
opinion that summer following greatly
benefited the soil by the rest it gaye.
If the land lay utterly idle through all
the season of growth, should it not re-
cuperate its powers of production
They believed it would. And this Opin-
ion prevails to some extent at the
present time among farmers.
But absolute rest obviously adds
nothing to the soil; no food for plants
descends from the air above or rises
from the sub.soil below. No favorable
chemical action is known to be induced
by exposing q naked soil long time
to the elements; on the contrary it may
be apprehended that the washing of the
rain, the parching Of the sun, the evap-
oration of the atmosphere, remove
some of the volatile substances which
are found in o fertile soil. Rest does
not impart fertility to the sands Of the
desert, nor are arabic soils in state Of
nature where they are increasing in fer
tility ever permitted to be destitute of
vegetable covering.
The soil then does not need rest-re-
uuires cultivation. By cultivation we
mean here those physical changes which
NAV be made. 1t wants deep and
thorough working, so that the roots of
plants can reach every particle of soil;
it needs draining to draw of the stag
nant water which is poison to the roots
of our cereals and cultivated grasses.
Deep, thorough and frequent pulvcriza-
tion of the soil, though it adds nothing
to the amount Of plant food, will, by
making it all available to the crops,
cause the land 10 be very productive.
Then, except during the brief period of
this thorough working, the soil should
be producing, forit is by the sole agency
of what grows upon it that the farmer
can hope to increase the amount of
plant food in his land.
But is not land constantly producing
crops, whether Of grain or grass, ex-
hausting itselfi Yes; if those crops are
removed from the soil, and no remuner-
atisn made thereof, but if the whole
produce of the ground is returned to it,
the amount of plant food is increased.
The soil becomes richer for the reason
that the substance of the plant was only
partly derived from the soil, but largely
from the atmosphere, and while the soil
receives again what it gave, through
the decomposition of the plant, it has
in addition all that was drawn from
other sources. This is the reason why
the plowing under Of clover, or other
green crops for manure, enriches the
soil. The crops have drawn only part
of their fertilizing components from the
soil; they have gathered from the air
likewise, and it is precisely this which
increases the previous richness of the
soil. And if all the manure which
crops will make by passing through
the animal system be returned to the
soil, its fertility will doubtless be main
tanned; enough will be returned to re-
place the ash h-constituents of the plant,
which alone were derived from the
earth.
We conclude, then, that the soil does
not need rest to render it fertile. 1t
needs cultivation and cropping, not
reckless, wasteful. unmcthodical farm
ing, but that so planned and executed
as to grow large and varied crops, and
dispose of them in such manner as to
return the extracted element to the
soil.-Rardl NeW Torher.