Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-05-27
nRNrrH Ann lis LESSON.

rain for several months to none, with
drying winds and bright sun, has
baked clay and titled ground badly IN
many fields, checked cultivation, and
prevents German millet and Hungarian
grass coming up where sown. Neither
oats, corn, cotton nor potatoes can grow
to any advantage until favored by rain;
and as there may be deficiency of this
all summer, the following statements
from reliable sources are well worth
considering: GAS you go north IN
California the rainfall increases. In
San Diego county they are happy with
ten inches per annum, and fortunate
if they get6ve; in Santa Barbara twelve
and ahalf inches insure their crops, the
Sacramento Valley has about 20 inches;
and eighteen inches insure them full
crop on soil properly prepared. In
1873 they had less, yet the crops did
well wherever the farmers had summer
falIosced their land. This practice is
now very general, and it is necessary,
in order that the grain may have the
advantage of the early rains"
With over forty inches of rain In
Tennessee, comparatively well distrib-
uted, in year, we permit our crops to
suffer from the lack of water, while in
Southern California, in climate that
makes oranges staple product, farm
ers are "happy with ten inches, and
fortunate if they get FIVE" The invalua-
BILE art of using rain water to the best
advantage we have yet to learn-our
abundance heretofore has made the
lesson almost unnecessary with us.
Before farmers anywhere will hus-
band water properly, they must fully
appreciate its value in agriculture and
organic life. To the husbandman and
gardener it should stand as their cheap
est, richest, and most indispensable
manure. The elements of pure water
form over forty per cent of the dry or
ganized matter of every agricultural
plant, seed, stem, leaf and root, with
rare exceptions. Without water in
comparative abundance, there can be
no vegetable or animal. If any thing
on farm or elsewhere should be well
guarded and husbanded, it is pure
water. That we sometimes have a
large excess avails nothing in a drouth |
that may soon follow, if no water is |
saved to meet the exigency.
In San Diego county artesian wells |
supply the needful; but in Sacramento |
Valley, where eighteen inches falling |
in less than six months give good
crops, no artificial watering is used. |
The summer fallow with eighteen inches |
of rain gives a better result than We
obtain with forty inches without the |
preliminary deep breaking up of the |
surface earth to hold water sufficient to |
make the crop. Suppose every farmer
IN the sunny South planted with the |
conviction that not drop of rain was |
to fall from the time he put seed into
the ground till the harvest? Then he |
would want more water under |
every seed, or some means of irrigation.
The first lesson we have to learn In
Tennessee is to store up water
In the ground before seed time.
There are several ways of doing this.
One is thus stated by Mr.. Nordhoff:
when farmer plows and prepares
his land in the spring, lets it lie all
summer, and sows his grain in Novem-
Der, Just as the earliest rain begins, he
need not fear for his crop" This
naked summer-fallow operates to sprout
the seeds Of many weeds and kill them
by after blowing. By neglecting this
preliminary tillage, our farms often get
very foul with weeds, which take the
moisture or manure that should form
our harvest Raise the plant you want
and no other to eat its food and starve
the crop; A deep, clean, permeable
soil, rich in manure, yields paying har-
vests. A comminuted soil holds much
water, and rain-water is manure.
Ponder the facts that twelve and a
half inches of rain husbanded in the
ground by deep tillage, though it fall
in the winter, in Santa Barbara coun-
ty, give better crops than more than
three times that quantity with US, al
though better distributed, yet not
studied, nor stored up to make by an
easy transformation our necessary
bread, our meat, vegetables and
clothing. Cremation proves that man
is vapor and air; but without water
there can be no vapor. Looking far
ahead and agricultural success go to-
gether. The rain we utilize does us
good; the surplus may do harm.
Water as force, in place and out of
place, is strikingly illustrated by the
recent disaster in Mill River Valley,
Mass. Nature viii not be trifed with
in agriculture nor In manufactures.
Before the pyramids were built, and
when ancient Thebes, the largest city
by several millions of people ever seen
on earth, was country village, raising
water from rivers and wells by wheels
for stock and farming purposes was a
common practice. Nearly 1900 miles
from the mouth of the Nile, and not
far from the equator, DR.. Schweinfurth
found nude colored farmers using canals
dug with iron tools made at home, for
irrigating their crops of sorghum,
whose seed is their only grain. Our
agriculture can boast Of few wheels or
canals of any kind to command water
from the Cumberland, Tennessee or
Mississippi, to be changed into plants
and human food. Necessity Will COM