The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1872-02-02
The Art of Farming.

We take the following very good ar
tiele from the Country Gentleman. 1t
will richly repay a careful reading:
A man possesses farm, the land
being Of average fertility, which
medium state means it is half worn
out or only exhausted of half its plant
food, and thus has the power of grow
ing half crops. If this man goes on
lowering the condition OF the land,
he is a bad farmer; if he does not
weaken the soil further nor improve
its capability to grow heavy crops, he
will tie a non-progressive One-a kind
Of milk-and- farmer; but if he
manages so as steadily to increase the
fruitfulness of the whole extent, till in
the end, it becomes sufficiently rich to
grow as heavy crops of every variety
as can be brought TO perfection, be is a
good farp,er, and one the country
should honor; he has not hidden his
talent under q bushel.
1t is easier to farm well than i'll.
The man who makes two blades of
grass grow where only one grew before,
and makes every other kind of pro-
duce double too, is happier man than
the one who plois on doing neither
better nor worse than the average;
while the miserable mortal who i'm
poverishes his land must feel how de-
graded a position he stands in, and his
mind must sink lower and lower with
his property. Ii q report Of every
farm through%eyery parish in the
Union was made once in seven years,
and the improvement, the impover-
| i,hment Of the non-improvement of
each was published, it would give the
country ST large better idea of what
is going en- in agriculture.
1t is no use denying facts, and the
truth ia, starting from the cast the
| land is robbed of more than balf its
fertility, and still as population moves
on, so does the exhausting system. If
when 8 parish, county or State is
half impoverished, s. stop can be put
to the facilitating process why not stop
at the beginning? Wig not reimburse
from the start? Land is seldom too
rich, and when il is what is said to be
ain the highest state of fertility"
what pity To bring it down! Yet this
is the custom, the fashion, and the eX-
ample set by all. This kind of policy
carried into other lines of business
would cause men to say the guilty
| parties were insane or fools. Land
cannot throw up immense crops on
water and air; therefore, if these
crops are sold off, the land is that
much the poorer, but science and
even common experience proves there
are stages at which some of the pro-
| L II ha + ON
away when nothing hrs been abstract.
ed to cause injury, and st this period
OF the crops growth il is turned into
manure, the land i, benefited with
out any foreign aid. Thus, by having
intervening crops of this kind, there
may be things sold one year which
will be replaced the next by this reno
walton. This is why the fOur-course
system, or some other rotation, is in
sisted upon in England. Poor land
is brought to be rich, and good land is
keptsup on the best estates; yet there are
annually great quantities of fat cattle
and sheep sold from these farms, and
wool, cheese, butter, etc, continue to
be produced because there is an art in
doing this so as to improve and in
crease the stamina of the soil.
There is no mystery whatever in the
case, for here is field of barley, say
grown after roots, this barley, proba-
bly, sixty bushels per acre, takes away
considerably from the soil, though be
ing quick grown grain not so much
as other sorts, but clover follows, hav.
ing been sowed with barley. Every
body knows when clover is cut young
the ground is benefited by producing
it, therefore, if it Is moved twice and
cut each time when coming intO full
bloom, there will be from the two
mowings tons per acre OF meter to
be manufactured into manure, which
has not weakened the land it grew on,
consequently this is 3 renovating crop,
and has done more in adding fertility
than barley did in slbtracting next
comes wheat, and that takes more
away than the barley did, but then
CORES the intervening root crop,
which puts far more into the soil By
being consumed than the wheat has
taken out, and so this easy, plain sys-
TEN is a fail exposition of all these
which are devised TO enable farmers
to make money while sustaining theil
| land,