Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1894-08-10
RESTORING SOIL FERTILITY.
A Consideration of This Great Problem by
The American Cultivator.


The American Cultivator.
The problem which confronts farmers
is low to increase the productive capac-
ity of their farms. This question is
made difficult by the fact that the farm.
while being improved, must provide a
living for the man who owns it, togeth
er with pay for the labor employed i'll
working it. Heretofore it has been these
necessities that have obliged farmers to
grow and sell the more exhaustive crops
because they sold for the most money
There has been close competition Ivy
farmers who were cropping and exhaust
ing virgin soil. That now has ended.
The farmer in the great west is under
the same necessity of restoring fertility
to his partly exhausted land as is the
farmer i'll the eastern states. In this
contest the victors will be the farmers
who secure the best stock and are thus
able to turn all the products of their
farm into the manure pile with the
greatest profit. The most serious losses
Of farmers come from keeping stock that
does not pay its way but now merely pay
ing its way is not enough. The greater
the returns from food given to stock the
more cheaply the farm can be fertilized.
The farmer who has set out to make his
farm richer should not sell anything
from it except as it is the product of
some stock to which it has been fed.
A second point and hardly less impor-
tant is to grow as largely as possible Of
renovating crops like clover and other
leguminous plants which procure nitro
gen from the air. If the supply of nj
trogenous fertility can be thus main
tained the farmer can well afford to
purchase supplies of potash and phos-
phate that are needed By seeding with
clover as often as every third year and
allowing the clover to occupy the land
the second season, large amount Of
rich feed can be grown while the soil
and subsoil are being filled with clover
roots. If the seeding of clover is good
and is left after the grain harvest with
out being pastured, crop of the very
best hay can be cut the first year of
growth If cut early in September, a
second growth will come up, which will
protect the roots during the winter. II
this clover is cut twice the next sea
son, it will in the three cuttings pro
duce ON rich land four to five tons OF
dry hay.
Some portion of the farm should ev.
cry year be devoted to growing corn,
which, either cured dry or put into the
silo, is the cheapest food that can be
grown. The corn crop is the only one
that we know that will every year make
enough manure, if fed to stock, to fair
ly top dress the land on which it is
grown. Corn is not a complete ration
and it is exhaustive, while clover /,
renovating. But the land that will il
/ three cuttings give four to five tons Of
clover hay will produce 80 tons of greer
fodder corn if planted in drills wide
enough apart to allow cultivating anC
to give chance for the corn to ear. Sucl
green corn as this is the feeding equiv
alent of eight tons of clover hay, o.
about twice DIS much food as the same
land would produce i'll clover hay. 1t is
however, much more than such Lane
would produce i'll any kind of grass
The farmer who is aiming mainly t.
increase the fertility of his land vii
not seed with anything but clover ant
will keep that as long on the grount
as is necessary to get the most benefi
from it.