The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1875-11-26
SOILS AND THEIR IMPOVERISH-
MENT.

N
pended.
One of the causes of the. increased la
Dor is the c~loseness or hardness of the
soil. A single beating rain will now
very often IL the soil of a newly
ploughed field &c run together and be-
come as hard as if not plOughed in twelve
months. This, in its turn, offers serious
impediments to the extension of the
roetlets, and, as a consequence, greatly
retards the growth of the young plant.
A prime result of this tagging growth is
n large increase of hoe OF hand work, for
had the soil furnished the conditions ia
vorable to prompt and vigorous growth,
the young plant would have outstripped
the weeds and grass, or mounted 50 high
as to offer greater facilities for their de
structiOn by the plough, The retarda
ton of the growth of the plant gives in
creased potency to all its enemies-lice,
etc.,-and so delays the production of
fruit that the boil or army worm sweep
away the greater portion of the crop.
1t is, Therefore, Interesting to consider
the causes which have produced a cOndi-
ton OF soil so ~unfavorable to the de-
VelOpment of the young plant. The loss
of vegetable matter first suggests itself.
There can not be a doubt that if to any
of our stiff hard fields a liberal amount
of vegetable mold were added, the result
ing crops would be considerably aug
mented, even if the added mold contrib
uted nothing to the s~ustenance of the
plants; for if it did not nourish the grow
ing plants, it would, besides favOring the
progress Of the ~rOOtlets in search of food,
insure a more equable supply of water,
and air, and the substances with which
they are freighted.
Our latitude has, doubtless, something
TO do with a speedy dearth of vegetable
matter, for the long hot weather determ-
ines a prompt conversion of vegetable
matter into carbonic acid gas, etc; while
farther north the same material would
remain on or in the soil a much longer
time without decomposing. But the loss
of the vegetable matter is not the sole
of the propensity to bake. The
withdrawal of the mineral ingredients
Il be credited with some of it, for the
soluble mineral plant food in a soil ex-
ercises also a strong influence in keeping
1t light and porous.
The question then arises: To what
causes are due the general exhaustion of
our lands? An easy answer is: Crop
ping without manuring. This is only
partially correct, for though it is the
truth it is not the whole truth. 1t is the
truth, because all plants exhaust the
soil Oh which they grow. Clover espe-
clally, which is by many regarded as a
land r%enOvatOr, has been shown by emil
nent chemists to be, almost beyond any
other plant, a soil impOverisher, mas
much as a single crop of it contains the
ingredients for two or three crops of
small grain.
The analysis of the cotton fibre would
seem to establish the fact that land
planted continuously to cotton ought to
grow better year by year, for the very
small mount of nitrogen and allied min
erals, which enter into the composition
of cotton wool are unquestiOnably much
less than that which is appropriated by
the plant from the air or which passes
over yearly from the condition of inap-
p%ropriable to Appropriate plant food.
Why then should lands planted to cotton
deteriOrate? Because, while the fibre
crop does not exhaust. even in a slight
degree, the seed crop is an enormous
yearly drain upon the soils fertility.
Taken as a whole, the cotton crop is
eminentiy exhaustive. But being, like
clover, a deep rooted plant, the transfer
of material from the subsOil to the sur
face soil, insuring to surface roofing
plants which come after it an abundant
pabulum, the extent of its exhaus-
tlyeness has been measurably lost sight
of.
But the sublime folly of squandering
the cotton seed has been given up. 1t is
now universally admitted that such a
course is eminently detrimental. But
even if all the seeds were returned to the
land from the gin, or as manure rom
the hog and cOw-lOts, the cotton crop
would, we think, be still a degree ex-
haustlve, unless certain conditions, to be
presently discussed, were strictly re-
garded.
There is one test which goes beyond
all others in determining the value of
any tarmeT's tactics. 1t is this: Have
his lands become more fertile? DO his
fields yield, with the same kind and
amoun of labor, larger crops than they
did five or ten years ago? Tried by
such a test-end the excellence of the
test is Observation-Disclosures has been Il
vast amount of bad farming in the Uni
ted States. The fact is, there are the
fewest good farmers from Maine to the
Rio Grande. The northern farmers
which are growing better, year by year
are few and far between. eve do not
here include vegetable farms in the
neighhorhOOd of cities.) Clover deceived
them and made them believe hat its ex-
haustive transfer, from the deep to the
superficial soil, were veritable additions
to the soils store of fertility. Deep
plOughing and understanding deceived
in ways not essentially different. All
the time the process of exhaustion has
gone on, and if correct comparative anal
Uses of the whole plant food in a given
depth, on most of our farms, could be
gotten, they would show a very material
decrease in the last twenty or thirty
years. Up to this time we have been
riOting upon the bounty of nature, and
have at length gotten to the point where
1T becomes necessary to be co-workers
with her, in order TO secur a Contin-
uance of her favor.
a few moments ago the opinion was
expressed that if every seed of a cotton
crop were restored to the soil, the crop
would still be, under certain circum-
stances, exhaustive. Long observation
of the effect of rains c~onvinces me that a
very inadequate conception of their spoil
atiOns is generally entertained. / nave
intended for ears past to subject this
matter to the test of careful experiment.
hut circumstances have prevented. |
recommend such experiments to your
readers, as a most valuable vein for in
v~estigatiOn. The amount is enormous,
As the billions of tons of foreign materials
in our swamps and lowlands abundantly
testify.
The deterioration from this cause is
specially great in lands planted to cot
ton, for the reason that cotton having
few surface roots, the slightest obstacles
are offered to the transporting power of
rains, whereas both corn and the small
grains permeate, with a close net work of
roots, the surface soil, and bind it so
firmly rs to bar very eftectuallv such
depredations. The inclination, or lay of
the land and the rows has, of course,
much to do with the extent of these
spOliatiOns. There are, I learn, in this
state some hill lands, cleared since the
war, that are already absolutely worn
out, and present to the eye a ~congeries
of rcd hillocks and gaping gullics. But
even when the inclination of the land
and the rows is very gradual, an ex-
tenslve observation convinces me that