Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1898-10-06
ABOUT SOIL FERMENTATION.
Kansas Farmers Are 9scklsss in Hz-
hsustiAg Their Farms.


| which reads in substance as follows:
A. E. Martin living on the old Sam
Reed farm near Bakers bridge, two
miles southwest Of Abilene, raised 60
bushels Of corn per acre in 1898 and
| Is bushel in 1897 on IS acres Of land
that was broken from the sod two
years ago. For crop Of '9S ground
was plowed ordinary depth, check.
rowed, cultivated four times and hoed
once.
II every acre Of land now in culti-
walton in Dickinson county had been
broken from the sod only two years
| ago no one in the county would ever
have known there was a dry period
this season, even if only ordinary
methods of cultivation Chad been
practiced. Mr.. Martin can depend
on fairly good crops on this new land
for from five to ten years according to
its quality and whether bottom or
upland-but it cropped successfully
for twenty years without anything be
ing restored to the soil this land will
accentuate every dry period however
short, and will then make good corn
crops only in the most favorable sea-
sons, just as a majority of the farms
in cultivation over twenty years are
now doing.
Every stockman now realizes the
Importance of retaining the "calf.fat"
il be would have large thrifty and
profitable steer but there are yet too
many farmers all over Kansas who
are not yet awake to the fact that
their soils are losing their "calf-fat"
and that they are now struggling to-
put meat on a stunted calf in the
form Of soil depleted Of its humus or
decaying animal and vegetable mat
ter caused by continued soil.robbing
in the practice Of one crop system
Will Mr.. Martin be wiser than bis
neighbors and bis generation and re-
tain the "calf.fat" or humus in this
soil SO that he may always have such
crops as he had this'year and last in
such seasons as this year and last
year? Win he drop the one crop
system year after year and adopt ro-
tation in which clover is prominent,
or if he cannot introduce clover sue
cessfully into his rotation will he SOW
cowpeas, beans or some other legume,
Immediately after small grain har-
vest and plow this under in the fall
just before the seed ripens, thorough
ly disking and packing each days
blowing that the green stuff plowed
under may rot promptly and thus
maintain buffalo sod conditions? Will
he so far as possible pillow under all
weeds, cornstalks and stubble that in
their decay give that vegetable mold
which makes the soil loamy and ena-
bles the soil to not only hold more
water but to hold it longer, instead
Of burning these each season and thus
promoting the tendency of the soil to
bake and become hard after heavy
rains and to blow more readily when
it is dry, where he does not seed
wheat in the corn stubble? Will he
break down all corn stalks and stub
Bile as early in the fall as possible u.s.
ing stalk cutter and disk harrow to
mince the stalks and partly cover
them with soil so that these may be
partly rotted and "fozy" instead Of
dry and hard when plowed under the
following spring.
Where the soil is kept loamy by the
decay of plenty of vegetable matter
it will give good returns with ordi-
nary cultivation because the soil rich
in humus dries out on top after
heavy rain without baking and leav-
ing the surface soil comparatively
loose but in the richest and best OF
soils good tillage will still pay and
especially prompt surface tillage after
every heavy shower up to the time
the ears are formed.
Is it not time, Mr.. Editor, to call
halt on this suicidal system Of con-
tinuous cropping without rest or
manure that is now and has been
practiced all over Kansas for the past
% years? The record Of 60 bushels
per acre on Mr.. Martins farm on
land only two years from the sod in
contrast with the short crops on hum
dreds Of fields which we're once just
as rich and were this year just as