Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1880-05-12

AN IMPORTANT LESSON FROM THE PAST.
There are lands in some sections so
largely composed of the mineral elements
required by wheat, that many years of
continued cropping will hardly show de-
terioration when the organic matter fur
nished by clover alternately grown is sup
piled; but deterioration will in time surely
follow. There is no soil that has proved
more enduring for wheat than calcareous
clay loan Of ;llluvial formation. Such is
the character of II large portion of western
New York and vet the alternate cropping
with wheat and clover has in p.st years
resulted in exhaustion of the mineral
properties of the soil. 70 relate my own
experience will corroborate this fact. My
farm is II heavy limestone SOIL underlaid
with lime rock, the soil being from one TO
ten feet in depth. From the early cultiva-
tion Of the land, which was about 1920, up
to 1886. winter wheat was grown continu.
ou>ly, without clover or any fertilizer ex-
cept the little manure made in the baru-
yard. which was only drawn on the land
to get it out of the way around the barn.
About this period from 1885 to 1887,
there seemed 10 be II general failure of the
crop. From that time we began to sow
clover to enrich our lands and with great
success. The system of wheat and clover
in alternate years was followed, and with
such abundant crops that we thought it
could never fail; but after following the
system some ten years our wheat became
less fair and plump, and while the growth
of straw was in most cases increased, the
yield of grain was less. The clover also
began to fail and it was difficult to get
good seeding. We continued on the same
course of wheat and summer fallow till
1854 and 80, when we met q total fail
ure. Still having an abundant growth of
straw, the straw became weak, so that it
would fall down before the grain was
ripened, and the grain would be shrunken.
We attributed the failure TO an insect, but
it was the unhealthy condition of the crop
that invited the insect, or that made its
destructiveness possible. The specially
of wheat growing was from this time
discontinued, and Il more rational system
of mixed husbandry adopted.
A few years later the use of mineral
fertilizers was found to be necessary to
restore our lands to their former product
iveness, and now so common has the use
of such fertilizers become that but little
age yield of wheat in the past three years
has been greater than any like period in
the previous quarter Of a century,and fully
up to the average of earlier times, when
we stood number one rs wheat-growing
section. All productive soils contain
given quantity of the elements of plant
food, and all grain crops carry away II
portion of these elements, and if not
restored there must be deterioration by
constant cropping, and while clover is
largely beneficial in bringing the crude
elements into condition available to the
wheat crop, it cannot restore what is car
ried away by it. If either of the elements
of plant food is exhausted there cannot be
perfect crop grown, and it is the true
policy of the farmer to restore annually to
bis soil the elements needed which his
crop carries away.-Hon. +. P. Root, in
Tribune.