Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1880-10-20
Deepening the Soil.

The unintelligent cutlery in favor OF deep
blowing in years past has produced reac-
ton in the minds of even progressive
farmers, so that on the whole the present
generation pillow scarcely deeper than their
fathers. The question, however, of deep
tillage needs further discussion. Investiga-
ton and experiment have shown that no alb
solute rules, as regards the depth that the
pillow should be run, can be given. This
depth ought to differ with the differences
of soils and of crops. A naturally deep and
rich soil of light texture may always be
more deeply plowed with profit than any
other. A light and shallow soil which is
kept in high condition by liberal manuring
can also be rapidly deepened with the pillow
to advantage A hard clay soil, undrained,
is almost valueess for tillage crops, in the
north, until it has been relieved of its sur
plus water by understands. And even after
this has been done it will not do to deepen
it more than half an inch year. Clay
that has been water-soaked for years is very
slowly changed into source of available
plant food, even when subjected to tllage.
Three or four inches of it thrown up to the
surface at once cannot be made into good
soil in less than ten years, during all of
which time the crops, whether tillage or
grass, will be less than under shallow culture.
For crops needing high earth tempera-
ture to bring them to perfection, such as
corn or sorghum, shallow blowing with
good supply of available plant food in the
plowed layer is necessary in all localities
where the warm season is short. For small
grains also, with the exception of oats, ex-
perience teaches that shallow tillage with
suitable enrichment followed by strong
compression of the surface after sowing, on
light soils,) gives the best results. But for
these crops on heavy soils the most thorough
tillage that can be effected by plows, drags
and other tillage tools to a moderate depth
is found to be essential, and even then good
results are always, in the long run, proper
toned to the perfection of the drainage.
Potatoes, on the contrary, and also oats,
demand deep and mellow seed bed. They
give their best and most abundant crops
upon deep, rich, mellow soil. On thin soils,
even though they may be well enriched,
these almost always yield small crops of in
ferior quality. Such facts show why it is
that the older parts of New England cannot
compete with Northern Vermont and Maine
in potatoes and oats. Both of these crops,
however (and all crops that require deep,
rich soils,) are very exhausting, and unless
the land is kept up in fertility by intelligent
management they soon ruin the farm upon
which they are largely grown. A farmer who
will sell off potatoes from the farm for less
than forty cents (Which is too little,) or
oats for less than seventy.fve cents, must
be doing it either under the constraint of
necessity, or of an ignorance that disquali.
fies him for his business. Oats however,
can be sold little cheaper if the stock kept
is of kind (such as sheep and cattle) that
the straw can be fed to in connection with
bran and oil meal and thus be made into
rich manure which will, when returned to
the land, fully keep up its fertility. Yet oats
and potatoes as crops to be sold off the farm
are dangerous things for unskillful farmers
to meddle with. Those who know nothing
of agricultural chemistry had better stick to
dairying and sheep, selling nothing but but
ter and wool, with the necessary few fat
COWS and the lambs and drafted ewes.
In deepening naturally shallow soils with
the pillow precaution must be used to 90
down no faster than the additional depth
can be enriched. A poor deep soil is not so
good as shallow rich one Although we find
the roots even of corn and wheat sometimes
three or four feet beneath the surface they
are mostly down there for water, while the
great bulk of their feeding roots will be
found in the top six inches. In deepening
clays we must not only enrich every extra
inch that we take up, but we must give it
time to weather and undergo the changes
which are effected by the free admission of
the air to its particles. With these points
in mind we may all deepen our soils to the
betterment of our farms.