The Red Cloud chief., 1881-05-05
re~rtilixing Land-With Illustrations

80 long IS circumstances aitef cases
Il will be utter folly TO lay dogn any
cast iron law with regard TO fertilizers
Here, IL anywhere, q man needs an
educated common sense. and needs II
to an uncommon degree. l have .
friend who owns q large farm. prin-
cipally devoted to growing stock. He
very naturally. and as ! believe correct
". spreads nearly all the manure upon
the grass land. But how does he do il?
His hired men haul il out and spread it
at the rate OF fifteen TO twenty large
loads per acre. Much Of il can hardly
be called spread; it is thrown of. a large
forkfnl, or nearly SO, in q place. and
left in that position. The result is that
there are many spots of say twelve
inches square. and often more than
that, where no grass 4 possibly
grow. Immediately around this NINA
ture heap there viii be an extra growth
of large coarse grass or hay tina, is not
agreeable to stock and not profitable to
the owner. Ii there were but now and
then such a spot. it would be q small
matter; but when there are hundreds Of
them upon each acre it is really n very
serious matter to the farmer, who is al
most universally short of manure. II
nay be said in defense of this, that the
manure is there and the land gets the
benefit of it; and sooner or later the
result will be seen IN the crops. All
this may be r to a certain extent;
but we do not wish to wait two or three
years for what we might have this COM
ing season.
Where labor is scarce and high, it is
possible that, ali things considered, il
NAV be best 10 haul from the barnyard
and spread. directly on the land. In
such eases. unless 1 had plenty Of il 1
would not put more than eight 10 ten
loads per acre, and then would be sure
hat il is spread as evenly rs possible;
il costs but little to have a man or boy
90 cver and spread evenly after the
teams have left it. Where Labor is
| plenty and reasonably cheap, | am
satisfied that it would be n better plan
to haul the manure out into a heap,
and, ii it is not composted. let il de-
cay and then work it over and have it
sufficiently fine To handle with n shovel
or our six-tincd forks. IL treated in
this manner, six to eight loads per
acre, well and evenly spread, will give
q much better result, and q more inn
mediate one, than the one above noted.
Other. and some very gooA, farmers
think it better to pillow all manure un-
der. and my early reading upon this
subject was. pillow deep and p!ow your
manure under; no matter If it is COW
cred deep. the plants will find it.
Near twenty years since, | wa break
;ac, ,n an ,,..a &c ha,,.y tnrf I,,
portion of it / put some very rich
manure. and plOwed it under not less
than eight and perhaps nearly ten
inches deep. The other part Of the
field had no manure. l am watching
yet for some result from the manure
SO deeply buried, but never expect to
see any. This little circumstance set
me to thinking and experimenting,
with results about as follows:
l am perfectly satisfied that by bury
ing manure too deep it has not been
worth rs much to me by many hundreds
of dollars as it would have been if | had
used it as | am now doing. In this l
am by no means confined TO my own
experiments. | have seen the same
teaching in many eases. A number of
years since a farmer. one of the class of
which we unfortunately have too many,
had reached the point where he had 10
move either his manure or his barn. and
concluded to move the former. 1t was
dry not weather. 1t had been packed
for years, and was broken up, hauled
out, and thrown upon the ground in
large Jumps. ONE of them as large as n
peck measure. The land was 4 heavy
clay and very dry. 1t was plowcd
! while in this conditions; and o. course
broke up in large hard Jumps larger
than the humps Of manure which they
were supposed 10 cover. The land was
sown with wheat. and the crop. of
course. a failure. 1 have watched that
piece of land to this day. and it seems
to me that the farmer might just rs well
kave had his manure buried under the
pyramids. | could if necessary men,
ton other instances where | have seen
very rich manure buried SO deep that
there was no visible effect ever when
the land was well cultivated. There
are some cases where | would plow
under coarse manure in fact l do SO
nor or less every year. but never bury
it so deep but what the next seasons
blowing will bring it all to the surface
again.
Upon some soils, remarkable results
are produced by blowing under some
very coarse manure or even straw.
Some years since n merchant remarked
TO me: .'You farmers say that dry
wheat straw is worthless as q manure"
l replied that chemical analysis showed
dry straw to contain but a very small
amount of fertilizing matter. WELL"
he retorted, three or four years since
l put a stack of dry straw in the fur
rows of a field that l wa having
plowed; it did not hold out for the en-
tire piece. but the portion of it where
the straw was put has produced very
much larger crops than the remainder
of the field, and is in very much better
condition in all respects. Now how do
you account for this if the straw has
not acted as a fertilizer?" Fortunate
ly | was well acquainted with that field:
it was an exceedingly rich piece of
land; a heavy black loan. with q sub
soil of stiff clay almost as impervious
to water as a stone JUG. The loan was
generally a bed of black mortar in the
spring, and baked like bricks in the
SuilliuCi. vi CpuISC IL Hao INV ptCu
drained. 1 replied to him: Your land
was very rich, and the effect of that
large amount of straw was simply me.
chanical. 1t ioosened the soil. kept it
from baking in summer. and. in short,
put the land in such n condition that
the growing crops could draw their
necessary supply of food from the
abundance the land already contained.
1t made loose and fine what before was
packed and hard" He admitted that I
was right. Now suppose l Lad con-
cluded from this experiment of his that
dry wheat straw was the thing for
crops, and had collected and plowed
under q large coat of it upon some OF
nv land, which is quite sandy. with a
subsoil Of fine white plastering sand.
The result instead of a benefit would
have been ruin to my crops, from the
fact that the soil is already loose and
porous, and needs to be made more
compact and solid. instead of the oppo-
site. u. Smith, an ". y. Tribune.
A pretty servant Girl in a Roches-