Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-05-22
FARM AND FIELD.
Shining Against Texas Soils-They
Should Be Kept Up.
A Talk on Creameries-GeolOgy and POmolOgy.
History of the Castor Bean-MOrs
Country Boom in Order.
SHINING Against the Soil.


For the Gazette.
Dick Naylor of Marshall, Tex. writing
for Farm and Ranch, says any trans
gression of natural law is a sin and will
EsssEely be punished. 1t matters not if it
beSesapSnitted through ignorance or
neglect; retribution will come sooner or
later 1t is true adage that "ignor-
ance of the law excuses no man. How
ever morally good a man may be, if he
goes contrary to God s established laws,
even by error or heedlessness, he will
suffer the penalty. Many are the infrac-
tons of natural law in the average
farmer IS life. He opens up q piece Of
fertile land, rich in the accumulated
humus of centuries, may be; he reserves
all the heavy timber, il it happens to be
tim bered land, utilizing a small pro-
portion for fencing and fuel,
and burns the rest out of the way
in making his clearing. This, though
an apparently wasteful proceeding when
we.tdink of the vast amount of good fuel
andttim beri destroyed by firer is unavoid-
ablgin many cases. In@ordeVkto get the
land IN a ststssof ehltivaHSh the heavy
timber mast be. removedG even if it be
done by fire; but rife torch does not al
ways stop with she burning of the heavy
timber. Much Of. the lighter trash that
could and should be plowed under is
raked up and burned. The farmer does
not think of the time when his land will
need ali the vegetable matter he can get
upon it. Nor does the torch always stop
with the cfeSEiHstup of the land. 1t is
frequently called into requisition every
autumn ito burn up. the corn stalks or
grass In the fields, The writer says he
has seen scores of farmers in our rich
prairie countries windrow and burn their
cornstalks as though they were a hateful
nuisance instead of a valuable assistant
(if cut up with a stalk cutter and plowed
under in the falD in making
the next crop, acting both as mulch
and manure. & He knows that
some of our, black land farmers argue
against the need of vegetable matter in
the soil. They say their land is already
supplied with all the humus it needs.
But, says Mr.. Naylor, they do not know
that just as fertile lands in some of our
Western states have been greatly de-
pleted by Just such treatment. The
most fertile soil on earth must ultimately
sucoumb to the starvation system of
farming. Adequate compensation must
be given for all crops removed if we
would get the full return for our labor.
No sane man would attempt to extort
labor from horse day after day without
feeding him. Yet the old pioneer style
of farming is about as unreasonable as
working a starved horse. The only DIFF
ference is, the land is more like DR.. Tan
ner than the poor horse-it can stand
starvation longer. Its final exhaustion,
however, is only q question of time.
Ultimately it VIII utterly refuse to re-
spond to its unreasonable owners de-
mands and yield nothing. Even the
valley of the Nile would become ex-
hausted but for annual fertilizing. Ma
ture does the work for the Egyptians,
though, while we must do it for our
selves.
Not few Texas farms are already
showing sad need OF decomposed veg
etable matter in the soil. One sees this
at the breaking up preparation for the
crop. The soil is compact for want of
vegetable matter. The SIN of land star
walton has been going on SO long that,
even with the most favorable seasons,
only very meager crop can be expected.
If these old lands were sown down to
COW peas and the vines plowed under
when beginning to bear, great improve
ment would be made. In two years a
good crop of corn or cotton could be |
made; and if the pea vines were rein
forced by stable manure, forest leaves
or swamp muck, just as good or better |
crops would be made as the land ever !
producSd.
Continuous cropping does not rapidly !
exhaust land. that annually receives a |
liberal supply of vegetable matter to rot |
IN the soil, but CONTINUOUS tillage with
out continuous application of humus-
yielding menuresS, and with the destruc-
ton by fire of all boulm and grass, is a /
SIN against the land that Will eventually |
be punished by poor crops and inferior
products.