Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1869-01-08
Horace Greedy on Flowing.

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THE Hon. Horace Greeley lately read the
following paper on Flowing, before the
Farmers Club of the American Institute:
"Many controversies arise from imper-
feet definitions The same words, the
same phrases, convey different ideas to the
rival disputants. Let me begin, then, by
making myself clearly understood. TO
save time. / will define by negation or ex-
clusion as follows: All soils do not re-
quire blowing to the same depth; because,
l. A large portion of the earth's surface
should never be plowed at all. No wet
lands should be plowed until thoroughly,
permanently drained. Flowing them
while still wet, or certain to become SO af-
ter rains is throwing labor away. A very
large area, consisting OF swamps, marshes,
boys fens, lake, river, brook margins, or
intervales frequently submerged or sodden,
should never be plowed until drained or
embarked. 2. Then a great proportion of
the rocky hillsides or crests, which consists
mainly of rocks thinly covered by and of
ten protruding through the soil, should
be kept always in forest, from which tim
Der is taken from time to time, but never
to such extent as to reveal it's ruggedness.
Westchester county alone has thousands
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grazing, which should never have been
cleared. Cut off the timber, if you are not
content with cutting out, but keep such
rough land always In wood Its cultiva-
ton can never pay; its grass is burnt up
by sultry week; while stripping it of
timber tends to render our springs and
streams scanty and capricious. There is
nothing worse in our rural economy than
this uncovering Of rocky sleeps that ought
forever to remain timbered 8. There
are moreover, lands too sterile to be Gull
tivated with profit, at least while SO much
good land lies idle and useless These
lands are often level enough, and not too
stony; but it will cost more to bring them
to proper state Of fertility than they will
then be worth. Some of these might be,
and probably ought forthwith to be, sowed
with nuts and tree seed and so covered
with timber probably the plow might be
advantageously used in the process; but
it would be unwise to subject them to other
culture for ages yet, if ever. Then there
are lands which have a good though shall
low surface soil, but covering poisonous
sub-soil, which must not be disturbed.
Prof Mapes found such tract in West
Jersey, where stratum of sulphate ofiron
(copperas) lay but eight inches below the
surface. To pillow into this, and mix it
with the surface soil, arrested vegetation
altogether. And again there are soils,
mainly alluvial, at once SO mellow and fer
tile that the roots of the cereals and most
plants will permeate and draw sustenance
from them though they are never distur-
bed by the pillow. presume the annually
flooded intervale of the Nile is Of this
class. l judge that the valley south of
Maysville, Cal, annually covered many
feet deep by the turbid floods of the Yuba,
Tolber, and American rivers, is much of
the same There are portions of the inter-
vale of the Illinois where the muck is six
teen feet deep, very loose and rich. was
told in California that the grape, though
it had to be watered sparingly during the
first two summers, needed no irrigation
thereafter in the valleys of that State,
though they are dried up in summer to
the depth of several feet. The roots strike
down through the rich loan below till
they find moisture that they can appro-
pirate and thrive upon. Judge that the
valley of the Sacramento and its numer
GUS tributaries is often bored to the depth
of four or five feet
al have thus fully conceded that deep
blowing is not everywhere requisite.
| Now let me show where and why it is
| needed: 1. 1t has been abundantly DEM
onstrated that the roots of plants are Of
| ten found at q distance of several feet
! from them. Any of us may have seen
| that this is as true of Indian corn as of
| Canada thistles. With microscope and
| due patience, the roots of wheat may be
| traced from four to six feet OF course,
these roots seek nourishment and find it.
Nature, in the broad view, makes no abor-
tive, at least no wanton effort. Roots
| wander in search of food not otherwise to
be found 2. Our subsoils are generally
compact and repellant Wherever a
ditcher would naturally use a pick, there
few roots can make their way except very
slowly and by wasting effort. Few or no
cereals or edible roots can feed and -four
ish on the penetration of such subsoils.
And while our sands or looser gravels are
more easily traversed, they seldom con-
tain the plant-food whereof the roots are
in search. They either remain unpen-
etrated, or the effort is unrewarded by any
gain of nutrition to the plant. 3.
Our summers and autumns are
The continuously torrid suns.
which this year DESTROYED half the later
crops of Europe, are here encountered as
often as every third year. Drouth is one
of the foremost causes of the failure of our
crops. Our ancestors mainly migrated
hither from the British Isles, from Hol-
land, and the coasts of Northern and
Western Europe, where humidity is the
rule, protracted drouth the exception.
| Sixteen inches of soil in our climate is
| hardly equal, as an antidote to drouth, to
six inches in ireland and Holland. And
yet the best farmers of those countries
agree in commencing deeper blowing.
4. What we advocate is not the burying
of the vegetable mold or natural surface
sod under several inches of cold, ifeless
clay, sand or gravel. If the subsoil is not
to be enriched, it may better remain
subsoil but that does not prove that it
ought not to be lifted, stirred, aerated,
pulverized The right thing to do is to
enrich as well as mellow and aerate the
entire soil to the depth of fully eighteen
inches, though twelve may answer as a
beginning. Use Michigan or a subsoil
plow, if you will, and keep the various
strata where nature placed hem. But
give your plants, like your cattle, chance
to reach food and drink at all times. Let
down the bars that would keep them from |
the lfe-giving springs s. Plants look
to the soil for u anchorage; (2 |
moisture (3) most of their food. I'll
they cannot find these more certainly in |
twelve to eighteen inches of soil than in /
six, then reason is fool, mathematics q |
coniectural science, and a farmer should |
prefer balance in bank to his credit of /
5000 to one of $1,000. 6. We are told |
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