The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-07-07
be successfully grown when planted in mid

be successfully grown when planted in mid
summers
Sometimes it happens in our
very dry and hot summers that
not even peas make enough of
a crop to shade the soil wnen thus planted
late, but usually they can be made to sue
coed. Very few farmers heretofore have
found the pea valuable as money crop, as
it is an expensive crop to market, and 1t Is
to be valued chiefly as manurial or fallow
crop, holding the position here that clover
does at the north. In the past two years,
however, our field peas have been in de-
mand at much better prices than they had
been before. and it is crop that will prove
more profitable in the future, no doubt,
than it has in the past.
While we cannot grow clover in this
climate from summer sowings for the pur-
pose of providing humus it can be very
readily grown from fall or spring sowings
if we will only give it land suited to it and
sow it as carefully as it should be. Those
who have once given it proper trial know
very well that red or sapling clover mot to
mention the Burr clover, which grows as
readily as peas, almost, can be grown sue
cessfully on good land by sowing the seed
| along with small grain in the fall, or it can
be sown on the grain IN February, and it
will take possession of the land after the
grain is cut off. When sown with
grain in the fall it comes up promptly, but
does not make much growth until the
grain is out of the way. The grain stubble
act in ha hn
clover grows very rapidly and soon shades
the land.
If the land is good and twelve to fifteen
| pounds of fresh clover seed used per acre
success will generally follow. 1t is not
necessary to cover the seed, though slight
| brushing in will not be out of place.
Where sugar cane or sorghum is grown
it will pay to haul out the refuse (''bugasse'D
and apply it in burrows and list upon it.
sprinkling it with a little lime before cover
| ing. While it is desirable to save every
particle of vegetable matter to the land
that it is possible to save at a reasonable
cost, it will rarely be found profitable to
haul pine straw on the land for supplying
| humus.
AS mulch for Strawberries, Irish pota-
toes and the like its use may be made very
profitable. Considering the cost, however,
it can not be found profitable way of sup
plying humus. 1t is oftentimes advised,
| but not by men who have had experience
with it in this respect. 1t is neither practi-
cal nor economical.
Humus must he grown on the land and
| not hauled onto it.
The chief concern of a farmer, it seems to
me, is not so much to bring up badly worn
soil to medium state of fertility as to keep
his good soil that pays him to cultivate up tc
| certain high standard. If he can do both
probably we'll and good, but it is much
easier to make good land better than it is to
make poor land rich. II farmer has land
that produces 400 or 500 pounds of lint, OF
fifty bushels of corn or wheat per acre his
aim should be to keep it up to that condi.
ton, or still further improve it as long as
he cultivates it. 1t may not be that such
land will require an annual application of
fertilizer or humus TO effect this. 1t may be
that manure supplied every other year and
a bountitul supply of humus every two or
three years will accomplish the object more
economically than small annual applications
would.
1t is a matter that every farmer mus
settle for himself, as he Is the only person
who knows the condition of the land from
its past results Such parts of the farm
that ne knows has not paid him for year
or two should be turned over to the weeds
or to Bermuda grass, and allowed to accu-
mulate a SUNNY of the hunus that is essen
tial to restore its lost fertility. Without
this essential quality land can never be made
rich, and can never respond to commercial
fertilizers, however freely used
s, A. Cook,