The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1873-01-31
Flowing Deep-and too Deep.

Circumstances alter cases. Deep
blowing is generally good, bat there
are exceptions to the best and most
general rules. If soils are well drained,
and, not too thin and poor, they ought
to be stirred deeply; the propriety of
deep stirring may be questioned. Sup
pose by thus doing you convert your
ground IN spongy mass which not
only receives but cannot rid itself of
the surplus of water, viii your practice
be wise? Soils in low fiat places with
impervious clay bottoms, or subsoils,
may be put in this condition. The
Germantown Telegraph has some good
thought on this subject, which we trans
fer to orr columns. It says: We sup
pose that when old DIR. johnson wrote
that little learning is a dangerous
thing, he must have been a regular
reader of agricultural papers, or of the
reports of agricultural discussions, and
noted how people run away with half
an idea, to their fellow-creatures injury
in the 90 long run" And yet not alone
agriculturists, but many other strange
people are just as much demented when
they hold of some half idea which
they think think will benefit the world.
Here is one man who processes to have
found out that thought is nothing but
phosphorus that without phosphorus
the brain would cease to think; and
that the light of intelligence is really
and literally but phosphoretic glow
Then he finds that Professor Agassiz
says that fishes contain more phosphorus
than any other animal, and straightway
our over-jealous humanitarian goes
preaching over the country that no man
need be stupid if he Will only eat fish
Now, many of the lectures farmers
get are much like unto this fish story.
Here is one before US about deep blowing.
A farmer had three hundred acres of
land. His daughter got married. He
gave her as a dowry half his farm
pretty liberal, wasn't it ? But finding he
had more time to spare, he went to deep
! blowing, and found he raised just as
much on one hundred and fifty as on
the three hundred acre lot. This en-
couraged him and when another
daughter married he gave her half the
remaining the great joy of the SON
in-law no doubt, and went to work plOw-
ing deeper in the seventy-five than be-
fore. But 10 and behold he was more
/ blessed than ever. Heaven smiled on
his generous deeds-and deep blowing
and he found he got more from the
seventy-five than the whole three hun
bred acre farm, while his labor and
taxes and all that was less And he died
a rich man but whether it was the
heavy deep blowing which killed him
or not, the story does not tell. And
then the writer goes on to say that if
every one would only go and do like
wise, how rich they might get to be
The truth is, there is many soils in
which if one pillow deep he may find a
fortune in so doing; but on the other
hand, there are acres of land when it is
sheer madness to pillow deep. On flat
clay lands where water can not
drain rapidly away, and where the lack
of drainage is the bane of the cultivator,
it is found by experience that a shallow
but rich surface soil is much better
than deeply stirred one. And the
reason is obvious. If water be an
injury, and it cannot get into the soil
by reason of the hardness of the sub
soil, the rain will pass over the surface
to the open bitches which always have
to be made in a flat country. If we
loosen such soil deeply we only harbol
more of our liquid enemy, and this
coUnter-ba1ances what otherwise might
be good thing in deep soil.
Besides this, there are other consid
erations. If the surface-soil be poor
and we turn this down into still poorer
subsOil, we bury what little good there
might have been in the surface-soil, ia,
below the reach of the roots. IF am
one has prospective sons-in-law will
such soils as this, they had better no
be too liberal in dividing the land
A little learning is undoubtedly
, dangerous thing in farming. There i
no department of industry wherein cir
cumstancess alter cases more than il
this. While deep blowing is an excellen
thing when circumstances suit, there ar
innumerabIe cases when it is wise to e
the other way.