The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1886-03-12
Blue.GrasS Fertility.

he evidences OF tins fertility are eV-
erywhere apparent. Mature. even IN
those places where she has bscn forced
for nearly a hundred Years 10 bear so
much at the hands of not always ju-
dicious agriculture. increasingly strug-
giles to cover herself with bushes of all
sorts and namelcsS annual weeds and
grasses. Even the bluegrass contends
in vain for complete possession Of its
freehold. One is forced. living here
without the least sentiment, the rich
pageant of transitory wild-bloom that
aDiH force passage for itself over the
landscapes; frmaments of golden dande-
lions in the lawns; vast beds of violets,
gray and blue. in DINNER bosky glades;
patches of Haunting sunflowers along
the road-sides; purple thistles, and, of
deeper purple still, and far dcnser
growth, beautiful iron-wecd in the
woods; with many clumps of alder
bloom, and fast-extending patches of
perennial blackberry, and groups of
delicate May-apples. and whole fields of
dog-fennel and golden-rod. And why
mention coarser things-indomitable
dock and gigantic poke, burrs and plen-
teous. nightshade, and MULLEN and
plantain, with dusty gray-green rag
weed and thrifty fox-tailp-an inuumer-
able throng.
Maize and pumpkins and beans grow
together in a tield-a triple crop. Ma
ture perfects them all. yet must do more.
Scarcely have the ploughs left the long
burrows before there springs up varied
wild growth, and fourth crop, morn
ing-glories, festoon the tall tassels of the
Indian corn ere the knife can be laid
against the stalk. Harvest fields usually
have their stubble well hidden by a
rich, deep aftermath. Garden patches,
for all that persistent hoe and rake can
ID, commonly look at last like spots
given over to weeds and grasses. Side
walks quickly lose their borders. Pave
ments would soon disappear from sight;
the winding of a distant stream through
the fields can be readily followed by the
line of communistic vegetation that
rushes there to fight for life. from the
minutest creeping vine 10 forest trees.
Every neglected fence corner becomes
an area for fresh colony. Leave one
of these sweet, humanized woodland
pastures alone for short period of
years, it runs wild with dense young
natural forest; vines shoot up to the
tops of the tallest trees. and then tum-
BILE over in green sprays on the heads of
others.
A kind, true, patient, self-helpful soil
If ever there was one! Some of these
lands after being cultivated, not always
scientifically, but always without artiti-
cial fertilizers, for more than three-quar-
tiers OF century, are now, if properly
treated, equal in productiveuess to the
best farming lands of England. The
farmer from one of these old fields will
take two different crops in a season. He
gets two cuttings of clover from a mea-
dow, and has rich grazing left. A few
of these counties have at time pro-
duced three-fourths of the entire hemp
product of the United States. The
first in wheat and hemp and Indian
corn and wool and tobacco and flax,
and this although half its territory is
covered with virgin forests. When
lands under improper treatment have
become impoverished, their productive
ness has been restored, not by artificial
fertilizers. but by simple rotation of
crops, with natures own help. The
soil rests on decomposable limestone.
which annually gives up to it in solution
all the essential mineral plant food that
judicieus system of agriculture should
ever remove.-Jdmes Lane allen, IN
Harpers Magazine for February.
An English sportsman, shooting on
the north shore Of Long Island, was in
vited to dinner at a farm house, and
was 80 astonished that he writes to a
London newspaper about it. "lwonder
how often in merrie England, he says,
"a farmer. with his family and two men
servants, sits down to roast turkey,
chicken pie, with four or five vegetables
and cranberry pie, to say nothing OF
both whisky and beer 70 drink"