The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1899-11-25
lEARMERAND PLANTER.
Keep somethi7g Growing and So
Utilize Plant Food that Would
Qthervvise Go to Waste.

keep something growing on your
land this winter if it is nothing better
than rye. We commenced last spring
by putting large quantities of manure
and fertilizers on our garden soil; we
have been cultivating this soil all sum-
mer, making more and more plant
food available. The crops we have
grown have been mostly water and
very little of this plant-food has been
removed, SO that the fall months find
our rich garden lands well filled with
available nitrogen, phosphoric acid,
and potash, and especially nitrogen.
We know that this is SO because it
does not require nearly as much ma
nure to grow our fall crops as it does
those in the spring.
Now our winter months are general
ly very wet and much of this plant
food bound to leach out of the soil and
be lost unless we keep something
growing on the land; for it has been
proved that the loss of plant-food is
very small whenever there is proper
cover crop. This loss is especially large
with the nitrates, the others do not
amount to much; but this element of
plant-food is what we gardeners must
have, and it is the one which costs us
the most. 1t simply takes to itself
wings and flies away, where the land
is bare during our wet winters. 1t
makes me very sad to go by field after
field, as did last winter, where the
land was bare and had much of it been
freshly plowed, only making it that
much worse, and know that hundreds
of dollars worth of plant-food was be-
ing lost that would have to be re-
placed the next spring by the purchase
of manure and fertilizers.
Crimson clover is an ideal cover
crop and can be sowed between the
rows of late vegetables. such as beans,
turnips, corn, etc., from the middle of
August to the first of November. We
use about peck of seed to the acre,
and aarrow it in lightly after the vege-
tables have been freshly cultivated,
and while the soil is damp. Much has
been written of late years about this
clover; it has been estimated that a
good crop will gather from the atmos-
phere and fix in the soil SIS worth
of nitrogen to the acre; and in Mary
land it is called the mortgage-lifter.
1t has been a success with us when
planted on rich land, and the partial
shade of the vegetables are great
help in getting it started. We can
not, however, advise sowing it on poor
land; for with us it has not made
growth enough to warrant the outlay
On such land, rye or oats make bet
ter cover crop for winter, and we must
depend upon the COW pea with chemi-
cal fertilizers to bring up this land be-
fore it will grow clover profitably.
Now, friends, there is an old saying
that, "a penny saved is penny
earned" and this will apply just as
truly to your soil as it does to your
pocket. 1t will pay you to keep some
thing growing on all of your land this
winter, even if you have to turn some
of it under before it is large enough to
cut, in order to plant your early yege-
tables. Remember that you will not
only save dollars and dollars worth of
fertility that would otherwise be lost,
but you will be gathering more plant
food from the air at the same time,
which your crops next year will get
the benefit of.-Southern Cultivator.