Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-05-18
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 sin and will
surely be punished. 1t matters not If it
be committed through ignorance or
| neglect; retribution will come sooner or
later. It is true adage that "ignor-
ance of the law excuses no man." How
! ever morally good q man may be, If he
goes contrary to God established laws,
even by error or heedlessness, he will
| suffer the penalty. Many are the infrac-
tions of natural law in the average
farmers life. He opens up a piece of
fertile land, rich in the accumulated
humus of centuries, may be; he reserves
all the heavy timber, If it happens to be
timbered land, utilizing 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 think of the vast amount of good fuel
and timber destroyed by fire, is unavoid-
able in many cases. In order to get the
land in q state of cultivation the heavy
timber must be removed, even II it be
done by fire; but the torch does not al
ways stop with the 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 all the vegetable matter he can get
upon it. Nor does the torch always stop
with the clearing up of the land. 1t is
frequently called into requisition every
autumn to burn up the corn stalks or
grass IN the fields. The writer says he
has seen scores of farmers in our rich
prairie countries windrox and burn their
cornstalks as though they were hateful
nuisance instead of a valuable assistant
(if cut up with stalk cutter and plowed
the next crop, acting both as mulch
and a 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
succumb to the starvation system of
farming. Adequate compensation must
be given for all crops removed il 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 a 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 a sad need Of decomposed veg |
etable matter in the soil. One sees this |
ut 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 a 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. III two years |
good crop of corr or cotton could be
made; and if the pea vines fFere rein
forced By stable manure, Mrest leaves
or swamp muck, just DIS gSSd or better
crops would be made as TIE land ever
produced.
Continuous cropping d6ess.not rapidly
exhaust land that annually receives a
liberal supply of vegetable matter to rot
IN the soil, but continuous tillags with
out continuous application of akumus-
yielding manures, and with the dFstruc-
ton by fire of all boulm and grass, is q
sin against the land that Will eventually |
be punished by poor crops and Inferior
products.