The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1880-03-06

earth both in times of drouth and ex
cessive wet are of great service.
Good drainage is especially necessary
for clay soils. Without drainage sea-
sonable work can seldom be done in the
spring. Every farmer knows how
troublesome clay land becomes if run
together and packed after having been
plowed. Much needless work is caused
by blowing such lands too early in the
spring. Fall blowing is great assist
ance; it adds humus through whatever
growths may be on the farface, and the
alternate freezes and thaws of winter
break up the inert clods and grind down
the soil into a more soluble mass. Cold
and unproductive soils which have stag
nant water sufficiently near the surface
to be reached by the roots of plants re-
quire to be underdrained.
Alluvial soil may be said to have no
distinctive character, being composed
OF successive deposits, continued through
a long period. They partake somewhat
of the soil of the country from which
running waters have washed and de-
posted them. Alluvial lands, of course,
are rich in humus and do not need the
assistance of green crops turned under
or the application in any form of vege-
table matter. They are generally de-
ficient in the mineral elements and are
benefited by phosphoric acid, potash
and other mineral plant-food. The
same may be said of soils known as veg
etable molds and containing large per
cent. of vegetable matter.
Loans are soils in which clay and
sand unite, sandy loans being those in
which the sand predominates and clay
loans those in which the proportions of
sand and clay are reversed. These must
be treated according as the sand or clay
predominates.
If all the crops annually produced up
on ones land were returned to it the
soil would annually improve in fertility.
With this fact in view it is easy to un-
derstand that as part, at least, Of each
crop is annually removed plant-food
equivalent to that contained in the por-
ton of the crops carried off must be re-
turned to the land to secure its enduring
fertility. 1t has been practically dem
onstrated over and over again that the
roots of all plants, and especially the
legumes, have a power of acting as
chemical agents upon the mineral ele-
ments of the soil in a manner which
renders them available as plant-food.
This in part explains the desirable eff
fects of the cultivation of peas, clover
and the like. q
While the general principles here laid
down and already familiar to many
farmers are the same everywhere, their
application to practice must of neces-
sity vary with the differing circum-
stances surrounding individual farmers.
Certain practices which give admirable
results at the North may fail to be of
any avail at the South, and vice versa.
Many of these differences farmers must
learn from experience, though much
knowledge may be gained by observa-
ton. The interchange of experiences
from all sections of country through
journals devoted to the farmers inter-
ests, agricultural stations and farmers
clubs can not be too highly priced or
encouraged. Every farmer who takes
the trouble to promulgate facts coming
into his own line and of general interest
is soon rewarded for that trouble by
some equally valuable fact, otherwise
unknown to him, from another farmer
whose opinions were called out, maybe,
by his own communication.-Neso York
World. H 9iaso s.-