The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1875-05-28
AGRICULTURE.
FORTY FIVE BUSHELS OF CORN TO THE
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To test the value of green crops
turned under, as a manure, an expert
ment was made during the past plant
ing season, on four and half acres of
land on Charleston Neck. It proved so
successful and suggestive that a de-
tailed account of it should be brought
to the attention of farmers generally,
particularly as the materials employed
and the manner of working the crop are
within the reach of all. a...
This experiment in land improvement
has also apparently solved an interest
ing agricultural problem, which has
perplexed both the chemist and
the practical farmer, namely, to dis
cover a cheap and abundant supply of
nitrogen for the use of our cereal and
textile crops. @ -' ''''
If the plan herein recommended
should prove, after further trial, to be
as successful in other hands as it has
been in those of the writer, an impor-
tant step forward has been made in ag
riculture, and the cost of production
will be very much lessened thereby,
and the certainty of making "a crop
vastly increased. #e ezerr Vi.
We know by experience that the ash
element of plant food, that is to say,
the potash, lime and phosphates are
either sufficiently abundant in most
soils, or can, if needed, be readily sup
piled by artificial means, at small out
lay, and with comparatively little labor;
but the nitrogen which all plants re-
quire, and without which. they cannot
thrive, must be sought for in the waste
of animal organizations. Hence, it is
the most expensive material which en-
tiers into the composition of our ma
nures. To obtain il, the farmer has to
resort to the troublesome and expensive
process of soiling cattle, and the col
lection and composing OF their manure,
and ship loads of guano, fish scraps, and
dried flesh are yearly imported to sup
ply the demand. Therefore, the great
desideratum for the agriculturist, is
to discover some cheap mode of obtain
ing this important agent, and an eco
nomical method of distributing it when
found.
The worn out wheat fields of Virginia
are rapidly renovated by the systematic
cultivation of the grasses, and particu-
larry clover, which, turned under with
lime and phosphates added, has worked
like charm upon old fields long aban-
doned as worthless. But clover will
not grow readily under the burning
suns and in the light sandy soils of the
cotton states, and substitute has been
diligently sought for.
The soil of the four and half acres
upon which the experiment. alluded to
was tried, is light and sandy loan.
The higher portions of the field are
dry, but a part slopes gradually to a
salt lead, and being low and wet, has
been underdrained with wooden boxt s,
on the ordinary and well known plan.
For three years past a crop of corn has
been taken from the field, and no ma
nure applied, except dressings of At
lantic company phosphate. Not one OF
these three crops has been in any way
remarkable. It had been observed that,
growing in this field, during the winter
month, was heavy crop of the native
vetch, of which there are two species,
one bearing 8. large pod and pea, the
other, smaller, and seeding in a very
different way.
In other respects the plants are quite
similar in their appearance and habits,
which are peculiar. The seed germin.
ates and springs into life in October,
at a season when the weeds and grasses
of summer begin to decay. The vines
push rapidly to maturity during the
winter months, seeding in March. Al
soon as ripe the seed is shed, thus spon
taneously replanting the ground upor
which it grew, before the blowing and
preparation for the planters crops are
commenced. Animals OF all sorts are
remarkably fond of vetch plants as for
age, either in the green state or dried
and feed greedily upon them, thus
proving their nutritive qualities.
The applicability therefore of the
plant for land improvement can, from
what has been said, be seen at glance
Being winter growth it can in no way
interfere with the planting operations
1t seeds itself, and is practically indie
structible, unless plowed and destroyed
before it seeds. It propagates itself
only by seed, and apparently is one Of
that class of plants which draws its
sustenance largely from the air. II
may be looked upon as the nearest ap.
proach to clover that we can find, and
in this experiment has proved itself 9
valuable agent in furnishing to a corr
crop sufficient nitrogen to produce an
average of forty-ave bushels of corn &c
the acre.
About the first of May Q874 this
growth of vetch vines was simply
listed with the hoe into the corn alleys
of the previous year, but before listing,
one hundred pounds per acre of agri-
cultural lime was busted over the vices,
and after listing four hundred and fifty
pounds of Atlantic fertilizer was scat
tered on the list, and the land bedded
with the pillow; excepting strip OF
eleven rows, upon which no phosphate
or nitrogenized manure of any kind
was put, but only lime at the rate of
s(1TOO) seventeen hundred pounds to the
acre. The corn was planted alb nut May
18th, twenty inches apart on the bed
and kept clean with cultivation, and
bedded with the pillow when sheeting.
In comparing the eleven rows planted
without fertilizers, but with lime alone,
with the balance of the field, which had
received liberal dressing of Atlantic
company Fertilizer, no perceptible DIFF
ference couldu be detected, proving
that the vegetable matter furnished by
the decomposition of the vetch vines
contained a sufficient supply of nitro
gen for the sustenance of the corn crop