The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-01-15
Raleigh, N. c., January Is, 1901


ut TO De called soil or is ready to fur
n1sh plant food. The rest is useless
until pulverized so that the average
crop only has about one inch of soil
upon Which to feed, real soil from
which to draw it's food.
Below this three or four inches is
found six or eight inches of compact
cath which for convenience we call
hard pan. It has received this name
because it is too hard for water to
circulate freely through it either by
gravity Or capillarity. It is also too
hard for the little feeding rootlets Of
growing plants to penetrate. Hence
it is worth very little if anything to
the growing crop. But this hard-pan
is filed with phosphoric acid, potash
and lime, the three great mineral
elements Of plant life. But though
at present they are locked up so far
as the plant is concerned and below
this hard pan the earth is sufficiently
porous for the upward and down
ward circulation of water, and for
the growth of plant roots.
WHAT WE CAN AND OUGHT TO DO.
Now little study will make it
clear that the first duty of every
farmer is to quit plowing his land
when it is wet and quit making sun
dried brick bats and proceed at once
! to mash every one he has made by
i the repeated use of plows, harrOws
and rollers. Next he should proceed
to break up this hard-pan and make
possible the free circulation of the
water, air and sunshine and the free
| growth Of plant roots. By doing
this he will almost indefinitely in
crease the depth of his soil, almost
indefinitely increase the richness of
his crop, almost indefinitely increase
the profit of his farming.
What we mean to say is this: the
Lord has made the earth rich. He
has filled it with the necessary ele-
ments of plant food. He has wisely
left it to US to make this food avail
able or not, as we farm wisely OF
fOolishly we can make our soil deeT
and rich by simply plowing deep and
often.
The hard-pan is creature of our
own manufacture made by our folly
and ignorance. 1t is an interference
with all good farming. Hence it is
our first duty to proceed to remove
it at once. No farmer should be sat
isfied with less than fifteen inches OF
we'll pulverized soil. This depth OF
soil will make possible such crops as
we have not been accustomed tC
gathering.
What we call our poor upland
farms with fifteen inches of soil can
be made to produce from so to 1OC
bushels of corn per acre, from 80 to
so bushels of wheat, from 60 to 100
bushels of oats, from to 2 bales of
cotton and so on of other crops. If
YOU doubt this, try to prove it false.
Prepare any given number of acres
with fifteen inches of soil and plant
anv crop you please upon them and
make a fair test.
OF course you can use on soils thus
prepared all the manure and fertll1-
zers you may be able to raise or will
, ing to buy. They will pay you a
much larger~elear per cent. of profit
on these deep soils than when used
upon the ordinary three or four
inches of soil. But you can become
independent of chemical prepara-
tions by this method of farming.
We have said nothing Of nitrogen
or ammonia, because it is not a min
eral element of plant life. 1t is
found in rich abundance in the at
mosphere and carried by animal and
vegetable matter and rain water into
the earth in sufficient quantities
wherever intelligent farming is pur-
sued upon fifteen inches of soil.
A few years ago used to see a
farm upon which everything seemed
to be going to ruin. The owner never
made his farm pay. A young Swede
who had gathered up few hundred
dollars by working as a "mOnth
hand bought the place, and in a
short time you would hardly have
known it. He fixed up the buildings
and fences, worked the land care