The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1895-10-05
FARMER AND PLANTER.
CATCH THE SUNSHINE.
IL b One Of the Essentisls to Successful
Farming.

ut b One of the Essentials to Successful I
Farming.
Sunshine is such a potent factor in |
the growth of crops that all farmers
should give it good opportunity to
rightly do its work. II is an item in
the weather reports about crop pros
poets. Family physicians prescrite It
for many human diseases Stockmen
and dairymen are learning to let the
sun shine on their stock. It's health
ful influence upon vegetation is more
obvious than upon animal Tie. A
sprout growing from potato in dark
'ceiler will point toward window Civ
arg even a faint light. There could be
no vegetable or animal life on the
globe without sunshine. And still it
sometimcs happens that a crop re-
ceives too much sunshine.
1t is the work of good farmer that
he shall so select his crops. his ground
and seasons. then so cultivate that
each crop shall receive the amount OF
sunshine, heat and moisture that its
nature calls for. Where the surface
of a farm is hilly or even undulating
he can select the southern slopes, the
rocky and sandy soils for those crops
needing the most sunshine, and the
northern slopes, the clay and colder
lands for those needing less,
OF course l have studied the wants
Of crops in my own latitude Southern
kentucky more than any other. This
belt of North America But this lat
itude Is nearer the southern edge of
the best climate for wheat, oats, to-
bacco and Irish potatoes. Hence these
crops usually grow best on the north
ern slopes, while sorghum, sweet pota-
toes, Reld peas, all the melon and vine
crops grow better here ON the southern
Slopes
would prefer to plant the apple
orchard and most of the other fruit
crops on the northern slopes. II be-
comes a farmer TO exercise his best
Judgment when he comes to decide
how much ground surface shall be
given to each tree, plant or vine.
Where apple trees are expected to
grow large they need forty feet OF
spsce. Where the large varieties OF
corn arc grown for grain they need
about eight square feet of ground; that
is, stalks from two and half to three
feet apart 1t requires more nerve
than most men have to pull mp enough
young corn to give what is left the
space it needs. Farmers are learning
to give corn more space when they
grow it for ensilage or dry provendel
than when they were sowing it few
ho~ 40 rl,i
them that sunshine should come tt
che soil all around each plant. Blu
what is sunshine? Is there any
thing ia it more than light and heat
And how does it do its work to make
crops grow? The modern scientis
tells us that sunshine is .wave-motioI
Sof the all-pervading ether That ethe
is that substantial something that &C
cnpies in constant quantity ever,
square inch of space in the Inverse. l
occupies all the interstellar distance
and is equally in all solid substances
= These ETHEREAL waves are set in motio
by the great heat of the sun. Whe
these waves come to the earth we cal
them sunshine. When they strike tn
earth some of them penetrate solid sui
stances, and some of them are reflected
1t is from these phenomena that W
have the seven colors. The heat wave
that.come with sunshine are absorbc
and then radiated. Bnt the how {
these ETHEREAL waves of light and hea
penetrating plants, their roots and tn
soil around their roots makes the croE
to grow lies beyond the ken of huma
understanding. And so we had as we
confess that there are many things
the secrets of nature that have nj
been dreamed of in our philosophy.
N. b. Dudley, in Farmers Home Jou
nal.