The Scranton chronicle. (Scranton, Miss.) 1897-19??, 1901-03-02
FARMER AND PLANTER.
TRUCK FARMING LANDS.
pairing the soil for Raising
Vegetable. for Market.


A southern farmer writes to us: 81
have piece of sandy soil that win
bring Is bushels of corn per acre with.
out help. We have good facilities for
shipping truck north, and | want TO
devote a considerable area TO the eul-
ture of early Irish potatoes, snap
peas and melons. How much CONNER
cial fertilizer and what kind will he
required to make good crops on this
land?n
Land that will bring but Is bush
els of corn per acre is far from being
in condition TO make even fair crops
of vegetables. 1t takes something
besides commercial fertilizers To pre-
pare land for the growing of the max
imum crops of these things. No mat
ter how heavily you apply the com
mercial fertilizers on this land IL will
not at once give you large crops of
truck. OF course, the application OF
fertilizers will largely increase the
crops that il would make without
them. but what l wish TO impress up
Aon you is the fact that land in that
condition can not use heavy applica-
tions of commercial fertilizers to ad-
vantage. In fact, il has been time
and again proved by experience that
no land which has never before been
cultivated in truck crops will give its
maximum yield until it has been cul-
tivated in these crops for severel
years and has been changed in its
character by the use of crops after
the early truck, which add humus to
the soil.
This humus is the vegetable decay
that makes the soil darker in color,
mellow and retentive of warmth and
moisture. The retention of moisture
is the most important function of the
humns or black matter in the soil, for
upon this MISUNDERSTANDING capacity
depends its power to use large apli-
cations OF commercial fertilizers prof
itably. We had an illustration of this
the past summer. We had one patch
of sweet potatoes on soil very de-
flicient in vegetable decay. Another
! patch was ON land where peas had
been grown, and finally grass sod
plowed under. Both were fertilized
! alike; the second patch kept green
and flourishing all through the un-
precedented drought and heat, and
made fair crop. The other made a
very inferior crop, and on digging
! them the fertilizer that had been ap.
4 piled in the furrow was found
O there as dry as when ap-
I piled. 1t had simply done no good
7 while on the other patch the humus
X from the previous treatment of the
;. soil had made the land more retentiyc
I of moisture, and the fertilizers had
1 been Dissolved and largely used by the
crop. Hence, j say, that in the pres
= ent state of the land described large
. application of fertilizer might be
y brought up gradually TO render II pro-
: ductive as truck garden, and II is
Q far better to make small piece pro-
ductive than to waste time and labor
E in going over n large area that has
: not been brought up.
The land you intend TO grow ITish
: potatoes upon in the spring should
r have been sown in peas last summer,
. and the peas should have had a liberal
dressing of potash and acid phosphate,
for your sandy soil is especially def
cient in potash, and potash is not only
an important element in the growth
of the pea plant, but it is even more
important TO the potato crop. IL the
peas had been sown last summer and
thus treated and the whole growth al
lowed to die upon the land, and as tic
leaves were falling in September, seed
of crimson clover had been scattered
all among them you would have had
crop on the land as trap
for the nitrogen during the winter
and the best preparation of the soil
for the potato crop, for the potash
and acid phosphate applied To the pea
would all be there still, since these
, do not isach rapidly from the soil as
: nitrogen is apt to do. But even If this
preparation had been made, it would
not do to assume that the 1aIrd~ "
ready TO grow fine crop of early
potatoes without further fertilization.
Few farmers realize the amount of
fertilizers that the regular truck gar
dcners use. They have been accus-
toned to the use of one or two hun
dred pounds of commercial fertilizer
per acre, and are apt to lack the nerve
needed to apply them by the ton per
acre; but for the production OF early
truck crops very few applications are
absolutely essential to success; nor
will it do to assume that because you
put one or two thousand pounds OF
fertilizer per acre last year that there
will not be any need for more this
year, for ii is only by heavy and an
nual applications of fertilizers that
the land can be brought up to it's
highest productiveness in early mar
ket garden crops But you may say,
How are we to accumulate this
humus in the soil which you say is
not important in its improvement? p
No one has better opportunity to do
this than the man engaged in the
growing of truck crops, for as his
early crops come off he has still the
cowpea that win grow an immense
crop on land SO heavily fertilized,
and in no way can the humus contents
of the land be SO rapidly increased as
by the sowing of peas on every va
cant place In the truck field. And not
only in places actually vacant at the
| time of the f.rons buf among eOrns.