Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-02-17
AGRICULTURAL.
CONSIDERATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
ABOUT THE FARM.
The Importance and Results Of Summer
FaIlowing Ashes as Fertilizer
Treatment of Garget-Ltc.

thorough cultivation Oh land, urged oy us
recently as necessary for obtaining the best
results in tilling the soil-or perhaps more
accurately stated as part of that subjects
the work Of summer following. The sea-
son for this is now at hand, and many
farmers who pursued this course last year,
and were thereby enabled to put in their
crops early the present season, are already
engaged in blowing their fields preparatory
to next fall and winter owing. Outside of
the beneficial effects to the land by the
summers rest, and the pulverizing and fer
tilizing influence of the sun through the
summer upon the deeply turned up soil
which benefit is at once and surely re-
1ected in the large increase of production
is the fact that it enables the
farmer to keep better abreast of
his work; to put in his crops
promptly inc season, and, in full,
to feel and know that he is managing his
farm, instead of his farm and werk driving
and managing him. The occupation of
farming, when wisely carried on, in place
of being characterized as one of ceaseless
and irksome toll, as frequently regarded
from false premises, should be accompa-
MED with great degree of independence
and restful opportunities, especially in this
State, with its peculiar and regular recur-
ring alternating seasons of activities and
rests.
True, the enterprising farmer can always
find plenty to do when his crops are all in
and growing, or when they have been har-
vested, thrashed and sacked, and "the
seasons work is completed" But it is no
more true that there is always plenty for
him to do, than that in this country of
"two seasons for the farmer sowing and
harvesting-ther is also always plenty of
time in which to do all needful work, and
with leisure, opportunities reserved, if as
already stated, the work OF the farm be so
managed that the proprietor is abreast of
his work, and, in common phrase, runs his
farm, instead of the farm running him.
In order to accomplish and maintain this
desired end, nothing is 80 helpful and sue.
cessfu as the practice of winter and spring
blowing for summer. fallow. It places one of
the largest portions of the years work at q
time when there is greatest leisure to do it !;
when the ground is in best condition for
the plow and when it can be accom-.
plished at the minimum cost. Ii
these alone were the moving consid-
erations in favor of summer. following,
they would be amply sufficient, but as
every practical and observing farmer well
knows, they are but the minor features in
the proposition and the far greater one
the large increase of productions that
which, no doubt, will in time secure the
general adoption of the system, as the in
creased income directly resulting will be
more potent in influencing the minds of
farmers than the more remote, but not less
essential, features above suggested. The
increase of yield from summer following
has been found in different portions of the
State to be from 60 to $50 per cent. In
some seasons, possessing peculiar and IN
usual features, the increase resulting has
even been greater, while the instances, if
any, in which advanced blowing has not
proved beneficial and produced an increase
of cereals are not sufficient to be taken
into consideration.
Some who have strong and productive
lands, lying in favored localities, may take
exception to these statements, and claim
that they can successfully raise crops of
grain each year, for any number of sue
ceeding years, upon the same field, and
that therefore the plan of summer fallow.
ing, and allowing land to lie idle each
alternate year, as required under that
method, would result in loss, by yielding
less bushels in the aggregate, and therefore
prove failure with them. This by no
means follows. In the first place, in order
to see the slow but none the less sure and
constant deterioration of the soil from the
practice of cropping every year without
rest or rotation of crops, and especially
without resupplying with fertilizers the
elements of the soil necessary for plant
growth, which are constantly being taken
from it by each succeeding crop-and
the application of such fertilizers
is almost an unknown feature in
practice thus far in California-we
have only to ask of such farmers the
amount of yield they now obtain per acre
and compare it with that produced ten or
twenty years since upon the same lands,
to discover the fallacy of such position and
establish the fact that change OF methods
has become, even with them, necessity.
1t is only by comparing present results
with those of former period that we can
get reliable data and satisfactory proof as
to our drifting.
In the second place, it is by no means
proven that because the aggregate of two
years crops produced by successive annual
cropping is greater than that obtained In
the same period of time by summer-fallow.
ing, and allowing the land to rest each
alternate year, that therefore the latter is
a failure or is not the most profitable. For
suppose that under the system of annual
crops ten bushels of wheat, for example, is
obtained each year per acre, making twenty
bushels in two years; whereas by summer
following one year, and taking off crop
the following year with an increased yield
say of so per cent. from this system of cul-
tivation, we would have under this method
but fifteen bushels produced in the same
period, as against twenty bushels under
the former course. Here, however, the
question of cost steps in and decides the
problem-for the prime question, after all,
is not alone the amount produced, but the
amount obtained above cost of production.
If, therefore, the actual cost
of production was the value
of five bushels of wheat per acre for each
crop; the cost in the first instance would
be five bushels of each of the two annual
crops, making the value of ten bushels as
cost, and leaving but ten bushels out of the
twenty as profit for putting in, harvesting
and marketing the two crops. Now on the
other hand, if we obtain fifteen bushels
from a single crop by means of giving the
land one years rest under summer fallow,
we have only to deduct the value of five
bushels as cost of production-the same
as for a single crop the other
way, and we have ten bushels left
the same amount of profit as obtained by
two years crops the other way, and with
only half the toll and half the loss of pro-
ducing element taken from the soil.
This computation is based upon low
fgure-50 per cent, as the increase from
cropping alternate years and summer.fal-
lowing, for experience and statistics show
that the yield is often 100 per cent. greater.
Taking that figure, then-l00 per cent,
as the amount of increase from this
method, and the profit above cost Of pro-
duction vrnuld he fiftaan hurhaIs for q Gin