Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1872-08-08
PERMANENT PASTURES.

From the Atlanta (Ga.) Plantation.
The Baltimore american Farmer for
July, has 2 valuable article on permanent
pastures applicable to our worn Southern
fields and climates. Some farmers in Mary
land apply one thousand pounds of ground
bones to the acre once in ten years to start
| and keep up constant growth of grass for
grazing or sOiliDg purposes. BIZ. William
WOOlsey, Of Hartford county, Maryland,
has farm of two hundred and Seventy-five
acres improved land that twenty-five years
ago yielded three barrels Of corn per acre,
and was so poor that the owner found it
''diiliculttO exc out a subsistence on it."
Now, twenty seven acres of this farm have
produced twenty barrels Of corn Gone hun
bred bushels) per acre; while his
wheat averages thirty-five bushels per acre.
The grass and corn grown on this farm
fatten from one hundred and fifty to two
hundred head of cattle year. "Fhis ex-
traordinary capacity has been obtained by
the sUbjOined method of culture: On the
worn out land in the beginning. Peruvian
guano was employed with excellent success;
but ere long abandoned, in the belief chat
any stimulating action must, in the long
run, prove hOpelessly exhausting. Lime
was tried and thought too SLOW. It occur
red to Mr. w. that as grass, through the
process of digestion, became bone, bone re-
turned to the soil, must become grass. Ac-
cOrdingly he experimental withibOne apply
ing first four TO five hundred pounds to the
acre, by which quantity he now abides.
Mr. WoolSey is averse TO much blowing;
thinks II suicide to land"
1t is great misfortune that Southern
farmers do not know that "much blowing"
is death to arated fields. From the State of
Maryland to the Mississippi, inclusive, what
else, except bad di.chiDg, has impoverished
the soil? Permanent pastures draw fairness
from the deep subsojHand the atmosphere.
The close reader will bear in mind these
facts: some thirty per cent. OF the ash of
wheat is potash; yet, red clay that yields
thirty-fve bushels of wheat per acre, after
it has been from five to ten years in grass,
has had not one pound Of potash applied to !
it. The twenty seven acres that produced |
two thousand and seven hundred bushels |
Of corn, supplied pytash in still greater
abundance, when all old grass sod was rot
ted for maD ure. Red clay had the needful
alkal, a salt of lime brought it out; and
clover and grass fixed it in rich plant food
for making wheat, corn, tobacco or cotton.
Land plaster and bone dust, with clover
and grasses change, in a few years, a barren |
old field into a new and most fruitful virgin.
soil. This transition is not sudden move
ment of elements. Nature takes her own |
time to decompound small particles of fell
spar, mica, hOrnblend AID other minerals,
and render their lime, potash and soda,
magnesia, iron, chlorine, sulphur and phos-
phorus available for the growth of grass and !
grain. ... ~. |
Permanent pastures give dense SOD of !
manure, aud nothing else can, except a
good meadow, which is grass treated in
different way.
How many of our old fields not row
titled, aAd Of fields still in corn and cotton
are seriously injured by washing rains?'