The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-12-10
Some of the Blessings of a Drought

Some of the Blessings of a Drought.
Amid the loud and constant COM
plants of our present protracted
drought, no one has yet found time
or heart to speak word of conten-
ment or of gratitude. Let me ask my
brother farmers to look on both sides
of this absorbing question and see il
they cannot find some cause of con-
graduation in what they, with the
rest of mankind" regard as an I'M
mitigated calamity.
The first cause of congratulation is
the general health that the drought
produces. We are freed, almost en-,
tireIy, from the frightful curse of the
ague, and other malarial diseases
that follow upon wet season and
that owe their birth and life to the
decomposition of an immense yegeta-
BILE growth.
2. A protracted spell of dry wealth.
er will add greatly to the destruction
Of seeds of many noxious weeds, and
thus leave the places that they oc-
cupy for the future growth of food
plants.
3. Our lands. like our bodies. re-
qui"e rest, and u drought is rest to
our soil. IF seasons of perpetual fer
tility should occur. one of two things
would happen: Either our fields
would grow up in weeds that would
require. in each successive year, ad
ditional labor to eradicate. or our
farms would be rendered totally un-
fit IN a short time for the cultivation
of our three great cereals corn, wheat
and oats-which crops cultivated sue
cessively on the same soil with a to-
tai disregard of chemical affinities)
would necessitate the introduction
of new found plants, or the constant
application Of costly artificial ma
nureS.
4. There is imprisoned beneath
our soils an exhaustless fund of ma
nures in the shape of gases that can
Only be reached by heat. These nat
ural reservoirs of fertility are kept
down by the pressure of moisture
and by shade. They exist in beds of
humus vegetable mold) or in a vir-
gin soil too deep to be reached by
the plow. That they exist IS known
to every observant farmer, from the
simple fact that soils taken from a
considerable depth below the surface.
as from the excavation of a well, will
produce for the first year or two a
very luxurant growth. This evolu.
ton of latent force, reached only and
generally diffused by heat. makes
itself beneficially apparent In the
next years crop; for old farmers will
remember, with me. the drought Of
1854 and the great product of 1856,
and also other successive season OF
drought and abundance.
5. A drought forces us to agricul-
tural economies. AS class our
farmers are proverbially wasteful.
To stranger it would seem that
feeding corn to hogs and hay and fod.
der to cattle OH the muddy ground
is regarded by so many of us as the
perfection of husbandry, and that
the burning of our straw piles is inn
peratively demanded by the neces.
sary use for the next year of the
ground thus occupied. 1t seems al
most useless to denounce a practice
that Is SO continuously and so danger
ously followed by men who aspire to
the reputation among their neigh.
bors of good farmers. If thisdroughI
shall teach US to make shelter for ouI
cattle and subsequent manure from
the straw (fany remains unburned)
or to lay planks or rails or poles or
the ground where our hogs are fed
on corn (if any of US shall have ans
CORN, then this much eliminated
season will not have been in vain
During the last severe winter l fed
and kept fat all my horses and cattle