Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1888-05-25

-
the land In time will be brought into
high condition of productiveness. and
be so free from weeds that the labor of
wedding will be reduced to the smallest
minimum. 1t Is scarcely possible to have
land free from weeds; seeds of the COM
mon weeds seem TO be everlasting, and
are so numerous that the plants still con-
tlnue to appear after many years of most
persistent destruction a single plant
of purslane produces more than 2,90C,-
600 seeds, and the seeds of this trouble
some weed are practically indestructible.
Soil taken from two feet below the level
of ground ever p!owed, In trenching for
bed of asparagus, has produced a most
abundant crop of this plant, along with
wild mustard, cinque foil, rag weed,
and several other weeds common
everywhere. Probably the seeds had
been buried there for scores of years.
where they had gradually sunk through
the soil, during its frequent expansions
and contractions, by reason of alternate
wet and dry periods. So tina; while
persistent culture and wedding will
greatly lessen the weeds and the work of
destroying them in the course of eight
or ten years, there will still be some to
afford an excuse for working the soil.
But this work should be undertaken
systematically. 1t should not be left
until the growing weeds make it neces-
sary. A loose, mellow surface and sub
soil through which the air can pass and
circulate is indispensable for garden cul-
ture, in which every favorable condition
for quick and luXuriant growth should
be provided. Weeds hewever, cannot
be permitted, or should not be, however
rich the soil; they take up a large share
of the plant food, which is not their
worst feature, for they abstract large
quantity of moisture from the soil, and
the growth of a crop is always in ratio
with the supply Of moisture up to the
point when it becomes excessive.
The plant food supplied to garden is
most useful when it is in a thoroughly
soluble condition There are some greedy
feeders-so supposed--which make a
These are, however, the succulent vege-
tables, such as rhubarb, which will thrive
in manure with very little soil about it,
Any other plants will do the same They
are all hungry and greedy for food. But
it is difficult to supply all alike, and so
those which are called gross feeders are
furnished with abundance, and the rest
90 with half ratiOns. No doubt some
plants will find food where others starve,
and have the habits of some animals in
this respect, finding nutriment in matter
which affords none to others, just as a
COW in pasture crops the tender heritage,
a sheep consumes the coarse weeds, and
a hog digs up and devours the roots,
while the butterflies and bees take only
the nectar. Plants differ in the same
way, and a compost of swamp muck,
spent hops, leaves, stable manure, and
other coarse vegetable matter, only half
decayed, will serve the eager appetite of
some, while Peruvian guano, flour of
bone, superphosphate of lime. nitrate of
soda, and other more soluble food but
especially the so-called complete or
the composition of the crop
they are intended to supply,
are the most effective with others. The
flavor of fruits and vegetables depends
in a great measure upon the food supplied
to them. A strawberry, an onion,
radish, or potato is much like a fowl or
pig or the milk and cream of cow in
this respect. A pig fed upon barleymeal
or potatoes, with sweet milk, makes
delicious pork, very different from that
of one fed in manure cellar or on filthy
garbage; fowl is much like a pig, and
the eggs or flesh of a hen which feeds
upon manure heaps has strong and
disagreeable odor and taste; every one
knows how milk acquires the odor of
garlic. onions, and turnips upon which
the COW feeds. So with vegetables and
plants. We have had far more delicately-
favored strawberries grown with Peru
Wan guano and old manure from hot
bed which had lost all it's odor; from as
paragus, peas, rhubarb, and cabbage fed
with fine bone -four and wood ashes, or
the common artificial manure prepared
for potatoes as special fertilizer, and
potatoes thus fed have been incompar-
ably finer in every way, freer from
diseases, and of higher flavor when thus
grown, or when grown with completely
decayed compost and leaf mould, and
when fed with rank stable manure.
In like manner, frequent cultivation of
the surface down to the roots but not
among or below them, is requisite for
the finest developments of the garden
crops. Onions, radishes, cabbage, let
tuce, are especially improved by this
frequent culture, and strawberries and
the other small fruits yield much more
and finer fruit. The effects of frequent
cultivation upon plantation of Kitta-
tinny blackberries in our garden were
shown in a remarkable manner a few
years ago when some rows of the plants
were struck with rust This variety is
quite subject to this disease, but when a
portion of the rows was kept quite clear