The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-04-28

if the season is favorable, give him only
Is bushels of corn per acre, unassisted;
and proposes to spend about 81 20 per
acre for what9 Simply to add a little,
Derhaps as much as the sprinkling of
| fertilizers will cost, to the crop, and
| still further exhaust the land already
badly worn. This is the secret of "old
| fields" all over the South, and until
our farmers get away from the old
"DLantinq" idea and go to farming,
| there is little hope for permanent i'm
prOvement. 1t is this kind of farming
which s men who only look at the
outside, to say that fertilizers are in
| furious to land because they are only
"stimulants."
1t may be laid down as a rule IN gen
eral farming, whether in wheat, to-
bacco, or cotton, that the man who
grows his money crop by the direct ap-
plication of commercial fertilizers only,
is on the road to ruin; while the farmer
who uses three times the amount Of
bought fertilizers, and uses them in
diligently, is adding wealth to his soil,
and of course growing richer himself.
The one uses the fertilizers to aid him
in selling off the natural fertility of his
soil, while the other uses them to grow
big crops of leguminoUs plants to aid
him catching. the costly nitrogen. n
storing it in his soil, and in growing
forage crops, to be fed upon the land,
to furnish manure for growing more
forage, and thus increasing the capacity
of his land to produce the money crop
in larger and larger quantity annually.
The one man simply speculates on the
chances Of getting the value OF his little
fertilizer investment out of the land at
once; the other has faith in his soil and
banks on it, and draws annually IN
creasing dividends. No matter whether
your money crop be tobacco, wheat or
cotton, it will pay to use commercial
fertilizers literally, but not for the sole
purpose of growing a sale crop. Now
suppose our friend, whose land is nat
urally capable of yielding only IL
bushels Of corn per acre, instead of
planting it again, with only enough
fertilizer to get it's value in the increase,
was to put the same amount Of money
into acid phosphate and kainit, and ap-
ply it to the land, or give the land a
dressing of lime, and SOW COW peas on
it this spring! He would get a crop Of
hay which, properly fed, would give
him a valuable anu pile; he would
have stored up nitrates in his soil and
made it better. Now let him SOW
Crimson clover on the pea stubble, and
in the spring turn it under for corn.
He would probably get twicesas much
corn as his land will bring now, and
have the land in better heart, without
any expense except a little clover seed;
and he would also have from the crop
Of peas, for his money crop,
which in this case happens to be cotton.
The great fault in our Southern agri-
culture is too many hOed crops and too
little of forage and recuperative crops.
1t is true that in many parts of the
South, on sandy soils, the grasses grown
at the North do not succeed. But this
need be no hindrance to a systematic
rotation of crops in which IegumeS
play an important part. The COW pea
is a far more valuable crop than red
clover yer can be in climate. It's
yield of hay is greater than that of red
clover, and the feeding value of the
hay is much greater than that of red
clover. The annual, winter-growing,
crimson clover succeeds here every
where, and in our mild winters carries
on the process of accommodating nitro
gen almost as we'll as red clover does
at the North in summer. With these
two crops for forage and green manure.
no cotton farmer need over regret the
grasses, if his soil is not adapted to
them. With these he a keep stock
and with COW peas and corn mixed he
can make the most complete ensilage
known. His homemade manure. from
cattle well fed, will enable him to re-
duce his acreage and increase his crOns
OF cotton, and the judicious use of
bought fertilizers, of the cheaper phos-
phatic and potassic forms, will enable
him to grow larger crops of peas and
clover and save entirely the purchasn
of the costly ~nitrates.
In fact, with a money crop which
makes so light a draft upon the soil as
cotton does, if he exchanges his cotton
seed for an equal value of meal and
bulls (the oil is no use to him as ma