Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1900-06-13
RIGHT FARMING IN VERNON COUNTY.
DR.. Porter Makes Good Suggestions About Dairying
and Tobacco Growing.

j
EDITOR CENsoR:-At the La Fargo
institute had talk with G.. p. Good
rich of Ft Atkinson, regarding tobacco
raising. Mr.. Goodrich as many of your
readers know, was probably, until re-
| Gently, the foremost dairypan in this
! country. From herd of hi n breed
| ing he made an average over 400
pounds If butter per COW / fear. he
has lived long in the tIpata sgion near
Ft. Atkinson and has obsS ID closely,
the effects of tobacco rag npon the
soil there He said in SO ance:
IF a man having 16s- res of good
land will raise three e our acres of
tobacco on it yearly ar Ill save all the
fertility on his farm - will sow clover
seed with his small 90 Z. his farm will
hold its fertility l. e time; but If on
quarter section g 81 eight, ten, or
fifteen acres of toba& he will very soon
find his soil growing poorer and b,s farm
sliding S.tt from under him.
He had neighbor who raised Sl2, 600
worth of tobacco in one year and yet
went bankrupt. A good many of our
farmers are going to impoverish their
soil before they know it by tobacco rails
! ing. The Eigin Creamery Co holds out
| the means of salvation to the tobacco
raisers and hope they will see fit to
accent this financial salvation. The
fe ality ySlae of ton of butter is only
40 cents The fertility value of a ton
of tobacco has never been given US, but
it must be ten or twelve dollars. The
ton of butter fat must be worth twice as
much as Ghe ton of tobacco, and yet the
butter robs the soil of only Accents. To
raise tobacco farmer must have la~ge
quantity of manure. The trouble Is,
our tobacco raising farmers are putting
all their manure on their tobacco ground
and are expecting to keep up the fertll-
ity of the rest of their farms with clover.
This they cannot do The clover will
add nitrogen to the soil but the tobacco
removes potash and phosphoric acid
from the soil and these two elements
are not replaced by clover. Stable ma
nure will replace them as will CONNER
cial fertilizers. Besides potash, tobacco
removes another similar element which
is lithium. The spectroscope shows
lithium in the ashes of cigar
Should the farmer buy commercial
fertilizers believe not He had bet
ter keep more stock and buy cotton seed
and linseed meal gluten feed, BRAN oats,
etc, and run this through his stock,
getting its value in flesh or in milk, and
getting over half its valce in the manure
pile In twelve wears | have bought
some four thousand dollars worth of
fertilizer in the shape OF linseed meal
bran. gluten feed, oats aud clover. l
have tried to buy foods having high
manurial value in nitrogen, These
| have run through lot OF cows, ana
sold about half their milk Selling milk
| Ian1 af faFfIt1tu
from The farm, about 16 cents per 100
rounds of milk. Two hundred dollars
worth of milk sold at S5 cents per hun
dred hounds removes $22 of fertility,
while 5000 worth of butter at % cents
par pound removes but 25 cents worth OF
fernlity from the soil.
The up-to-date farmers around Westby
are patronizing the skimming etation
there in good shape and while they raise
| tobacco there will be little danger of
bankrupting their rich soil because they
| will buy concentrated feed FOR their cows
| and thus add fertility to their soil
| The Elgin Creamery Company is do
| ing business all around us 10 the salts
| faction Of its patrons. Let the tobacco
farmers diminish the acreage Of tobacco
and add to their herds of cows and pre-
pare to patronize the skimming stations
which this company will place in local.
ties where enough milk can be obtained,
and they will be the better for it. Re-
| member we have no moral right to inn
! poverish the soil OF this beautiful county
| and God will hold the farmer RESPONSE
BILE if he bankrupt a single acre of it,
Fertility is the farmers bank The soil
robber Is no patriot; he injuries not him
self alone but he makes poorer the state
in which he lives and does injury to
generations yet to come.
On this subject of fertilito and to-
bacco grfwing append herewith com
munication from Prot. Woll. assistant
che mist at the state university agricul-
trral experimental station,
@. " PORTER.