Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1888-07-12
Rundown FARMS.
How to Restore Fertility to UnproductiV

How to Restore Fertility to UnprOducttvo
and Poor Soil. .
The first thing is to ask and answer
the question: why is the farm un-
productivea" Perhaps several answers
would be required. Here is field, or
corner, which must be drained; it does
not produce profitable crops becausei it
is SO cold and wet that crops can not
start early enough to insure good
yield. am quite familiar with the
soil of several States, and know that
there are few upland farms some por-
tions of which do not need to be
drained. Grass and clover must be
made prime factors in bringing up the
soil, by their influence on the soil by
giving it what we call rest, shading it.
filling it with myriads of fibrous roots
which loosen and disintegrate it, fur
nish it humus, and make it more per-
meable to the air and sunshine; and.
second, by enabling him to keep live
stock and furnish manure. Occa-
sionally a farmer is so situated that
he can buy manure so as to use it
profitably and restore fertility to the
soil, but as a rule this must be done
by animal husbandry. The farmer
who begins with a rundown farm
should keep little land under the pillow.
In this way he will be able to keep
expenses at a minimum, and to con-
centrate his fertilizers and labor on
few acres. He ought to make it rigid
rule not to pillow an acre of land except
he can put it in a condition SO that
he can reasonably expect n paying
crop. This may at first require that
ninety out of one hundred acres be in
grass, but better that, If the ten acres
make heavy crop and the ninety pay
some profit IN grass and improve in
condition, than to pillow fifty acres, as
many farmers of my acquaintance do,
and get yields which barely pay for
the labor and leave the land worse
than before.
The secret of bringing up q poor
farm is to grow good crops on it, and
if you can grow ten acres of such one
year, and fifteen the next you are
making progress, and if the crops are
largely fed on the farm every acre
grown helps to fit another acre to do
this. On all soils where it will -four
ish clover should be sown with every
crop of small grain. Seed literally,
a bushel to five or six acres is none too
much, and make it a rule never to pas
ture it after harvest, unless it gets
large enough to begin to bloom. OBJ
serve the same rule in the spring.
Glover ought always to be managed
with reference to the benefit the soil is
to derive from it, and to get the great
est benefit it must be heavy enough to
shade the land, and must make a full
growth of root to penetrate the subsoil,
and for both these it must make a
large growth before being pastured.
In addition to that as far as possible
use the manure as a top dressing on
small grain on which clover is to be
sown, and you will soon begin to realize
that in this plant you have powerful
helper in the work of restoring lost
fertility. 1t seems to be fashionable
lately to decry clover, and even to
sneer at the farmers who use and
recommend it, but forty years expert
ence with it in the uplands of Southern
Ohio leads me to place it first of all the
agencies by which fertility may be re-
tanned or restored, and whatever use !
may have put it to l do not know that
l ever grew a crop Of clover that did
not leave the land better for growing
it. I have grown thirty bushels OF
wheat to the acre on a clover sod on a
field which for years had not averaged
twelve bushels.
One other point must not be over
looked. 1t is not enough to say, feed
the products of the farm as far as pos
sible, but it must be fed to such stock
and in such way as to give a profit,
and to save the manure. The farmer
who keeps poor stock and feeds irregu-
larly and carelessly is sure to be short
of cash and to feel too poor to do much
towards improving his soil. Probably
butter dairy, well managed so as to
insure good profit from the COWS and
leave the milk on the farm to be fed,
is one of the best ways to run a farm
profitably and at the same time i'm
prove it, if it has been run down SO as
to be unpr Ofitable to grow grain. The
| farmer must give his personal attention
to all the details of the farm; must
stop all leaks and wastes, and thor
oughly understand his business if he
would be Waldo F. Broom,
| in Ohio Farmer.
What to Do With Runts.
With every litter of pigs there will