Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-11-21
FOR THE FARMER.
Wastefulness of observation-disclosures on
the Cost of Raising Sheep-Large
and Small Herds.
Treatment of Lice-Infested Cattle-The
Canada ThistIe-Good Butter-Mak-
ing-Fodder Corn.
wastefuIness of Following.

WastefuIness of Following.
1t is within the memory of some not
very old men when the summer fallow
was the common method of preparing
ground for the winter wheat crop,
where this was extensively grown.
The following insured a large crop,
and it was in those times reckoned
cheaper to give the use of the land for
year than employ the extra labor and
manure required to fit the seed bed in
a short period. The month of June
was the time usually fixed for blowing
the land. 1t was then laid by or oc-
casionally cultivated, as the case might
be, until the seeding time in Septem-
Der. Under hot summer sun vege-
table matter in the soil burned up, and
the ash furnished the requisite mineral
fertilizer that the wheat crop needed.
Something like a suspicion of the
wastefulness of this method of manur-
ing was probably the chief reason for
its abandonment. 1t was found after
a grain crop for the fallow did not
produce the grain crop it used to do.
1t made large straw growth, but the
grain was not there unless stable
manures or mineral fertilizers were
added. But with either of these, good
wheat crops could be grown after
spring again, the main difficulty being
to get the soil in proper mechanical
condition in few weeks. AS often
managed, even for this end, the stub
BILE seed bed was frmer below and
more thoroughly mellowed near the
surface than the fallOw. In very weedy
land the fallow. if kept clean, was al
most necessarily mellowed to greater
depth than was for the good of the
crop.
Vegetable matter that has first pass
ed through animals in their excrement
is better fitted for immediate use by
crops than in its original condition.
1t decomposes more rapidly, occupies
less bulk, and therefore acts more
powerfully. OF course in feeding
there is some loss of manurial value;
but it is not nearly SO much as the
loss of nutritive value where green
heritage is plowed under without feed
ing it. In some kind of plants the
manurial value is very small, while
the nutritive value is large. Corn is
one of these. 1t is not perfect food,
because to be that it must have large
phatic elements; but combined with
these in wheat bran, oil meal, or cot
tonseed meal it is worth much more to
feed than to use it in its crude state as
manure.
We have yet to learn of a satisfac-
tory or profitable experiment with
blowing under growing corn at any
stage of growth as a fertilizer. 1t can
not get large bulk except in the fall.
Then if grown thickly, so that its
leaves are pale white, 1t is of little use
for feeding and none at all as manure.
The only crop that can be put on after
it is winter wheat, and it makes the
soil too porous and light for that. In
our climate TIE green corn remains
soaked with water under the burrows
through winter, producing humic acid,
which is poisonous to almost any kind
of vegetables excepting moss and
lichens. Wheat roots rot off over such
a fostering mass of sour stuff. and the
crop is an entire failure. Nor will
clover or grass seed make good catch
on such land in the spring.
There is this to be said of blowing
under clover, that it contains more OF
plant food and of greater variety than
any other green heritage. 1t is also
usually plowed under early the same
session. As thus used, to grow pota-
toes or corn to be followed by winter
wheat in the fall, clover may prove
profitable. But if the land is to be
uncropped until seeded with wheat,
cut the clover, make il into hay, and
feed it to stock rather than pillow it
under the furrow. The roots of clover
constitute large part of its manurial
value. They will furnish as much
moisture as it is profitable to apply in
manure, and the manure made from
feeding clover hay will be worth more
for some subsequent crop of wheat or
corn than it would if left to rot as
green clover. under the furrow, for
wheat.-Anerical CUItiUutOy.