The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-04-23
AarirnHnraI
Is Tillage Manure2

story In proof OF the assertion;
"a few years ago two neighbors in a
New England village entered into a
friendly rivalry to see which could grow
the best patch of corn in their gardens,
which adjoined each other, were of the
same quality of soil and same degree Of
fertility. After a few weeks one of them
saw that his neighbours corn was growing
right away from his, and seeking for the
cause found it in the fact that while he
hoed his once week his neighbor hoed
his patch every day. In this case there
was no difference in the quality of the
soil, each contained the same amount of
plant food. But the daily stirring of one
patch with the hoe produced conditions
which enabled the plant to take up and
appropriate a greater amount of plant
food, and consequently to give more
rapid growth"
The above is one of those plausible
paragraphs which the scissor-editors who
are not practical men are sure to be taken
with, and which will consequently keep
going the rounds of the press. As in
most similar cases, there is a grain of
truth hid in four bushels of chaff here,
yet as it stands the statement is decep-
tive, and practically untrue.
There are soils which, being of q
tenacious texture and nearly destitute of
vegetable matter, will not produce a
satisfactory crop without considerable
amount of tillage. But merely scratching
the surface of such soil every day or
two with hoe is like trying to make a
silk purse out of sow's ear. To make
such ground fit for hoed crops, or even for
grass, it must first be thoroughly under
drained. Then pillow thoroughly, work
until fine, and seed it to grass. Now un.
til the crop falls below one ton to the acre.
Then plow it in the fall, turning the sod
we'll under, apply twenty loads OF manure
to the acre and work it in with disk
harrow, and your land will be ready for
hoed crops after cross blowing and filming
in the spring. On land so prepared, even
if heavy in its original state, first-rate
crops can be grown with no more crop
tillage than is usually needed to destroy
the weeds.
1t is absurd to suppose that hoeing
with hand hoe is " tillage." Tillage is
deep stirring and thorough fning by
the use of horse or steam-drawn plows,
cultivators and harrows. This must be
done before The crop is planted. By doing
it properly the soil is got into the condi-
ton in which the roots of plants can pene-
trate it in all directions, and fill it with
the fine feeding roots which extract the
plant food. This is tillage of the land.
Tillage of the crop should be for the pur-
pose of killing weeds and keeping loose,
open surface to allow proper circulation
cf air and moisture between the atmos-
phere and the earth.
Thorough tillage upon the above prin-
ciples will greatly improve the crops by
making what plant food the soils contain
more soluble and more accessible to the
feeding roots. But this is 30 far from
being manure" that it really hastens
the exhaustion of the soil, just in the pro-
portion in which it increases the crop. 1t
is true that very few farmers are aware
how rich some soils are in plant food,
until they have learned how to prepare it
for crops in thorough manner. When
good, strong soil is so prepared it may
often be made to yield profitable grain
crop year after year without any manure
at all. Sir John Bennett Lawes of Roth
amstead, England, has demonstrated this
fact in the most thorough manner; and
by the same experiment, extending over
many years, he has shown that the better
the tillage and the crops the more com.
1'letely the soil is exhausted al last How,
then, is tillage, in any true sense, manure?
One might as we'll say that having found
way to burn candle at both ends at
once, and thus get twice the light, he had
discovered perpetual candle
What is said above applies only to strong
natural soils of considerable depth and
complete natural or artificial drainage,
Upon thin and light soils Cor even upon
poor heavy soils), this kind of tillage would
be very injurious. and in many cases alb
solutely destructive. Mr.. Warnings famous
experiment, some years since, upon poor
clay soil in Rhode Island, after careful
undertaking, showed that thorough till
age below very moderate depth SO in
jured the land that after five or six years
of constant stirring, working and manur
ing it was less productive than it was be
fore he did anything to it. Take the gen
eral run of light or marty" soils in Yer
mont, with sufficient natural drainage
and what is pulled up as thorough till
age" will injure them very badly indeed
Fortunately it is 80 difficult and costly TO
us to plow and cultivate our farms deepl,
and thoroughly with the teams an,
implements we have, that it has been lii
tie tried. We have ourself brought VI
farm that did not yield one-fourth of
ton of hay, or hundred bushels of pots
toes, to the acre, until we can grow goo
crop of cabbsges on any part of it. 1t
a light, though not strictly a sandy sol
rha x,atnral dro;nooa 10 on mod that