The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1883-06-28
A RuinOus Policy Exemplifled.

The fact that land is apt to deteriprate
in cultivation where no particular pains
are taken to sustain its fertility is too
apt to be the recognized. teaching of our
agriculture. / know Z large number of
farmers who seem to look forward to
the time when their farms will be COM
pleteIy exhausted. have a neighbor
who is tilling a farm of sixty acres,
which was cleared by his father, the
farm having been in the possession of
the same family for about sixty years.
During this time, under some system of
progressive farming, great results might
be realized. This surely is time enough
to experiment extensively, to develop
ideas, and accomplish great results in
many directions. The productive ca
pacitY of this farm could have been in
creased much over what it was when
first reduced to cultivation. But time
alone, even sixty years, can not do
much toward success in agriculture;
and thus we have this farm of conven-
lent size, well located, always cultivated
by the same family, and containing not
one acre that has not steadily deterior-
ated since it was first cultivated. And
why? Because the practice has been to
set apart about four acres adjoining the
house to be used for planting ground,
and on this planting ground the
manure is applied year after year. 1t
is only a question of time when the re-
mainder Of the farm will be completely
despoiled of all the elements of plant
growth and become incapable of pro-
ducing any vegetation whatever. To
sum up the general results of this style
of farming: The heavier cereals can
not be produced on any portion of the
farm except this plot of about four
acres that has received all the manure;
the arabic land produces a very poor
crop of oats or buckwheat, or still
worse crop of grass, the remainder of
the farm being used as pasture; this
farm costs as much to carry it on as if
it produced four times the crops that it
does, and the farm and its stock are
IN every way very unsatisfactory.
This is fair sample of the present
condition of the farms which have been
cultivated without due regard to the
necessities of the soil. l know of many
farmers who are able to wrest but a
| bare subsistence from the soil, though
from the extent of their farms they
ought to be able to command an income
of several thousand dollars. The cause
of this state of-things is an utter disre-
/ gard of the lesson to be CLEANED from
/ the experience OF successful Farmers
/ those who have succeeded in making
! two blades of grass grow where one
grew before. A farmer can not go on
year after year drawing the crops from
a portion of the farm, and either selling
such crops, or feeding them out for the
benefit of other portions of the farm.
Every crop grown on the farm and
taken from it, takes with it certain ele-
ments of the fertility of the soil. Some
crops are much more active in impoV-
erishing the soil than others, and it is
sometimes found that after a certain
crop has been grown upon field with
| out any return being made to the soil,
it becomes more and more difficult to
produce the same crop to any advan-
tage, and recourse must be had tC
/ something else, which usually proves
| less profitable, and in time this crop,
too, becomes less and less remunera-
tive. AS the years go by, and crop
after crop is removed from the farm,
taking with it more or less of the fertil-
| ity of the soil, it becomes more difficult
to seed to grass when an attempt Is
made to interpose this as a weak bar
rier to fast approaching sterility.-C Cor.
/ Country Gentleman.