The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-12-06
SOUTHERN AGRICULTURAL.
Middle Tennessee Wheat Soils.

The intelligent farmer will find the
following figures, copied from the
Nashville (Tenn.) Democrat, both in
structive and suggestive:
1.-The report of the wheat buyers of
this city shows that fully 100000
bushels of wheat have been marketed
already. The price paid is 20 and 70A
cents. The following are some of the
crops reported: j. H. Whipple, 80
acres, average of 323 bushels; Geo. w.
Latimer, 45 acres, % bushels; John
Caldwell, 40 acres, 20 bushels; Jake
Caldwell, so acres, 81 bushels; A. j.
helms, $50 acres, So bushels; FL. +.
Fields, $50 acres, 40 bushels; Isabel
Bros, 10 acres, 40 bushels, and
4S acres, 80 bushels; Hugh Nc
Kinnis averaged 40 bushels, number
of acres not given; S. E. Apologize, %
acres, 81 bushels; Bob Adams, Esq, 20
acres, So bushels, Is acres of stalk
land averaged % bushels per acres j.
ID. Palmer, 80 acres, 29 bushels; G. w.
Miles, Is acres, 20 bushels; Joe Har-
per, near Rives, is reported to have
made 40 bushels on stalk land; DIR.
Wesley Alexander, go acres, 80 BUSH
els.n
There are millions of acres in the
Southern States that will yield, with
common tillage, over bushels of
wheat per acre, and it is an important
problem how they can be best improved
(if possible), SO as to produce crops
equal to those above named. Farmers
and perhaps all others have not the
data to estimate fairly the value of our
best grain, grass ard cotton lands. The
rocks that yield potash, lime, phos-
phoric and sulphuric acids to soils in
Middle Tennessee are more than thou
sand feet in thickness, and generally
abound in fertilizing organic remains.
Wheat plants, with their roots in we'll
titled debris of these rocks, tiller re-
markably. have seen in one case,
some ten years ago, so culms (stalks)
bearing about so seed to each head and
culm-a harvest of $500 seed for one
| planted. This is much larger yield
than the writer ever saw in the
best wheat district of Western New
| York, where he edited the Genesset
| Farmer, and studied the agricultural
resources of the country with care and
satisfaction. Rotten limestone soils
| in New York, as in Tennessee, some.
| times produces so bushels of sound
wheat per acre. These very fruitful
| soils have no better flint sand, no bet.
ter carbon, no better air, sunshine OF
rain-water from the clouds than
has the poorest old field in all the
| planting States. One hundred pounds
of fertilizer often adds over 2,00(
pounds to the crop. Now, tell an in.
quiring farmer where the 1900 pounds
of organized matter in the crop came
| fromp The crop is mainly common
| air and water; but did the air over a
corn-feld change into fair crop OF
that cerealP Why change into wheat,
clover, grass or cottonP What is that
remarkable energy that uplifts from
80 to 60 bushels of new wheat every
year from an acre of wheat soil? Ii
thirty years the United States will con
tain 120,000,000 consumers of bread,
and it will be unwise to double, per
haps quadruple the nations impover
ished farms, while doubling its citi
zens to be fed and clothed from the
fruits of its depleted lands.
A nation of farmers should not be
slow to breed, in addition to other or
ganic life, full supply of agriculture
statesmen to watch, guard and defeni
their interests. A man looking after
his crops, some to be harvested, some
to be seeded, has little time or oppor
tunity to oversee both State and Fed
eral legislation as they may saddle
him with high taxes and call it party
wisdom. Is it not enough to have /;
new department of agriculture with
seat in the Cabinet. The trouble comes
from defective legislation in county
courts and in the law-making power,
in Congress and State governments
Give us less taxation and more homes
dealing with our mother earth, tina
our posterity may not have to Civ,
three times more labor for bushel o
wheat or of corn, cotton or potatoes
than we now give. Daniel Lee, in Diri
Farmer.