The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1882-01-21
Surplus Straw.

Your far Western correspondent, who
inquiries for some method of rotting his
straw, so that he can use it for manure
and avoid the necessity of burning it, is
now passing through the same condi-
tions that once prevailed her in Central
and Western New York. Immense
crops of wheat. and few cattle or sheep,
and no one to purchase, forced us to fire
our piles of straw, when we could do so
and not endanger buildings. 1 once
put a match to the straw of fifty-five
acres of good wheat, that had been left
from the threshing machine near the
middle of the field. and then thought,
and still think, it was the best thing for
me to do under the circumstances. /
knew of no way to reduce the bulk of this
straw SO as to make it available for ma
nure that would not cost more than the
manure would be worth.
My neighbors were doing the same
thing, and we all sought some way to
prevent this waste, but could not find it
until our whole plan of farming was
changed. But one device we did resort
to, that had some merit, and may be
applicable in a small way to the wants
of your correspondent. We used straw
to raise potatoes. The ground was well
fitted by blowing and narrowing. The
potatoes were dropped in squares Of
about two feet and pressed into the
earth by the foot of the planter, or were
very slightly covered with earth. Straw
was then drawn from the pile made by
the threshing of the fall before, and the
whole ground covered 80 that there
would be about one foot depth of straw
under foot when standing on it. 1t took
good deal of straw to cover an acre in
this way, and when once SO covered
nothing more was TO be done in the way
of cultivation until harvest came.
The harvesting consisted in moving
the straw from over the potatoes and
picking them up. The straw would DO
very much reduced in bulk, in fact,
partly rotted, and in condition to be
plowed under the following spring by
some help of the plowman in the way
of workingit into the burrows. There
would be some weeds in the way when
gathering the potatoes, that had sprung
up among the straw, and the whole
matter of drawing and spreading the
straw, and then taking the crop from
under it, and the slow blowing to put
~ into the ground next spring. made
much labor, and this plan of disposing
|Sbf straw was never very popular, though
great crops of clean, beautiful potatoes
were in this way produced. But then
we had no market for more potatoes
than we could use and sell to the little
villages which marked the places where
our cities now stand.
The case is now all different with US.
We raise more cattle, sheep and horses,
hnd take better care of them, and use
eur straw for bedding and for covering
our yards in winter after every hard
storm. In this way we trample great
deal by feet of animals that mix their
dung with it. This mass of straw and
dung is put into piles to heat, aud start
the growth of seeds of weeds and thus
work out their destruction, or the clean
ings of the stables and sheds are drawn
directly to, and spread on, the fields
that are to be plowed the next spring.
All the straw that we cannot in these
ways make into manure we sell to the
paper-makers, or to be used for other
purposes. The papermaker comes to
our barns with his teams and takes
away our surplus, and pays for it sum
that often fully equals the cost of har-
vesting and threshing the crop and
seeding the ground with red clover.
We do not burn straw in these days,
but have come to think it of great value,
and this will be true by and by in the
great West-cor, ~ Y, Ifi6uRe,