Huntsville gazette., 1888-11-17
SOUTHERN AGRICULTURAL
Middle Tennessee Wheat Soils.

Middle Tennessee Wheat Soils.
The intelligent farmer will find the
following figures, copied from the
Nashville (Tenn.) Democrat, both IN
structive and suggestive:
"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 10Y
cents. The following are some OF the
crops reported: j. Fl. Whipple, 80
acres, average Of 324 bushels; Geo. w.
Latimer, As acres, 25 bushels; John
Caldwell, 40 acres, 20 bushels; Jake
Caldwell, 80 acres, 81 bushels; A. j.
Nelms, 18O acres, S6 bushels; 81. K.
Fields, $50 acres 40 bushels; Isabel
Bros, 10 acres, 40 bushels, and
48 acres. 80 bushels; Hugh Nc
Kinnis averaged 40 bushels, number
of acres not given; S. E. Applegate, %
acres, 81 bushels; Bob Adams, Esq, 20
acres, So bushels, 18 acres of stalk
land averaged % bushels per acre; J.
D. Palmer, 80 acres, 29 bushels; G. W.
Miles, 13 acres, 29 bushels; Joe Har-
per, near Rives, is reported to have
made 40 bushels on stalk land; DIR.
Wesley Alexander, 60 acres, 80 BUSH
els"
There are millions of acres in the
Southern States that will yield, with
common tillage, over 5 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 and 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, 50 culms (stalks)
bearing about so seed to each head and
culm-a harvest of $500 seed for one
planted. This is a much larger yield
than the writer ever saw in the
best wheat district of Western New
Yoxk, where he edited the Genessee
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 or
rain-water from the clouds than
has the poorest old field in all the
pruuu,IIs e,U.pV~v- -O---A-l--a 1>e,,,,a- Ct
Of fertilizer often adds over 1000
pounds to the crop. Now, tell an in
quiring farmer where the 1000 pounds
of organized matter in the crop came
from? The crop is mainly common
air and water; but did the air over a
corn-6eld change into fair crop of
that cereal? Why change into wheat,
clover, grass or cotton? What is that
remarkable energy that uplifts from
80 to 60 bushels of new wheat every
year from an acre of wheat soil? In
thirty years the United States will con :
tain 100000 consumers of bread,
and it will be unwise to double, per-
haps quadruple the nations impover-
iished 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 agricultural
statesmen to watch, guard and defend
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 a
new department of agriculture with a
seat in the Cabinet. The trouble comes
from defective legislation in county
courts and in the law-making powers
in Congress and State governments.
Give us less taxation and more honest
dealing with our mother earth, that
our posterity may not have to give
hree times more labor for bushel of
wheat OR of corn, cotton or potatoes,
than we now give.-Da1sielL Lee, IN Dirle
Farmer.