The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1892-06-02
FARMER AND PLANTER.
RATIONAL FARMING.

followed in very different ways. One
farmer may take up piece of ground
which he judges to be fertile from the
character of the growth he finds on it,
and its general appearance, and raise
the same crops year after year without
the addition of fertilizer of any kind,
making good living, perhaps even &C
quiring independence-if the soil be
rich enough-before it begins to wear
out and show impoverishment. An
other, less fortunate, finds his crops
growing less and less each year, and Is
compelled to break UP new ground con-
tinually. Both are alike, however, id
this. They take from the soil with
every years crop q certain portion of
those elements upon which its fertility
depends and as they give in return
nothing, or next to nothing, the result
with both is, at the last, WORKOUT
fields.
This certainly can not be called ra-
tional farming. No man would expect
a steam boiler to go on making steam,
even if he kept the fires going, without
continually replenishing the water as
it is evaporated, any more than he
would expect bank to continue pay
ing checks unless he sometimes put
something in to draw against; and yet
this is exactly what this class of farm
ers do. They make their draft on
Mother Earth for each years crop, and
never think it necessary to make any
deposit with her as Il credit on their
overdrawn accounts. The reason for
this is not far to seek. In our compar-
atively new state the lands are fertile
for the most part; they have been so
cheap, as a rule, that it cost less to
break up new land than to restore or
increase the fertility of the old,
and the ways and means of
such restoration or increase has not
been generally known. These condi-
tons are, however, gradually passing
away. With the growth of population,
the value of land rises, and with the
increase in the area under cultivation,
comes the corresponding decrease of
the virgin soils; and the farmers them
selves, through the media of agricul-
tural colleges, the agricultural expert
ment stations, and the agricultural
journals and papers, are gradually
learning that if they desire the best re-
suits from their labors, they must not
only know something of the character
of the soil and the chemical constitu-
ton, but that they must assist nature
by proper rotation of crops, and by
restoring to the lands the elements they
annually abstract from it. Such only
may be called rational farming, and an
application of science to agriculture.
BY this term l do not want to be I'M
derstood as referring to ''bool1 FARM
ing" as it is called by some, but to that
sort of farming done by men who not
only pillow and sow and reap as other
farmers do, but who also embody in
their work the results of their own
studies and the experience of others.
In such method of farming, the
chemical and physical properties of
the soil are the first things that must
be known. Many farmers are kept
from attempting to learn this by the
unfortunate fact that they are met at
the outsets by string of words or
terms which have no meaning to them,
and therefore convey no ideas to their
minds. They take up work on agri-
culture, and looking at an analysis of
soil, they find that it is composed of
silica, alumina, phosphoric acid, potas-
SUM oxide, calcium oxide, ferric oxide,
and SO forth and so on, and then they
know no more about it than thew did
at first. These terms may be fully ex-
planned in some part of the book. but
even then the explanation is often lust
about as plain as the words themselves
Nevertheless, since these are the ac-
cepted names of the materials which
constitute the soils, and since a knowl-
edge of these names, the elements
or combination of elements they repre-
sent and the part they take in the
growth of crops is absolutely essential
in proceeding with the studies neces-
sary tor farming on a rational basis, it
is best to master them at the start.
They would, no doubt, be more easily
understood and remembered if the En-
glish equivalents of each was given
with it. Thus, silica is simply sand;
alumina is the basis of ordinary clay
that is TO say, ordinary clay is a chem
ical combination of the base alumina
and the acid silica or sand, and we also
know it in combination with sulphuric
acid or oil of vitriol and water as alum.
and in the metallic state as aluminium.
Calcium oxide is lime; potassium oxide
is potash; ferric oxide is simply iron in
the shape of iron rust; bones are,
in very large part, combi-
nation of lime and phosphoric
acid; and thus we might go on through
the entire list. In the soils these
constituents exist in variable proper
tions often very minute, some perform
one part and some another in plant
growth. BY chemical analysis we learn
just what each soil contains, and with
the rules laid down by the experience
of years it is possible to say not only
for what crops given soil is best
adapted but to know how long it will
probably last with a production such
! as it should have and also the charac.
ter of fertilizer which it will require to
keep up the fertility to a given stand
ard or restore it when exhausted