The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-11-25
Maintaining Fertility.

The permanent and continuous sue
cess of any given farm depends upon
the degree with which its fertility is
maintained, says the Homestead. crops
and methods should always be CHOSEN
with this purpose as one OF It's leaolns
objects. In other words. one should not
allow an immediate temptation, prom
tally the future usefulness of the land.
to the adoption of a plan or the selec-
ton of a crop that will sacrifice mater
tally the future usefulnes sof the land.
Often the problem that confronts the
farmer goes even beyond this, and it
is not merely maintaining fertility that
constitutes his task, but it is the restor-
alton of exhausted fertility that he
must consider The variety of circum-
stances under which farming is car
ried on makes it impossible to prescribe
any hard and fast rules by which eth
err the maintenance or restoration of
the condition of the land is to be &C.
ccmplished. One plan will answer well
under one set of conditions, while at
some important point it might fail un-
der others. A chief element in all plans
where the land is under cultivation
should be a suitable rotation in which
clover, or some substitute for clover.
should have its regularly recurring
place. Circumstances may require that
the rotation be long or short, from two
years up to as high as six or seven,
and the disposition that can be made
of the crops grown often makes a ro-
tation consist of one series of crops un-
der a certain set of circumstances,
while another set of crops may be nee
essary under other conditions. This is
a point at which the farmer must do
his own thinking, and upon the intelli-
gence he brings to the problem will de-
pend, in large measure, his success.
Another point looking toward the
maintenance and improvement of the
fertility of the soil is the keeping of
the farm well stocked with all the do
mestic animals it will carry. OF
course the idea here is the removal
from the farm of as little of the fer
tilizing elements as possible and the
making of as large an amount of ma
nure as possible, and this latter point,
of course, implies that the manure
shall be we'll saved and properly ap-
piled. 1t is well nigh impossible to
keep up fertility under any system of
farming that depends upon the making
of grain or hay crops for the market.
Such a course removes too much and
restores too little. Otter when farm
is run down. if other conditions be
favorable, the shortest way to restore
its value is to stock it well with cows
and go into dairying. 1t may not be,
of itself, a highly profitable kind of
dairying, but in connection with the
purpose in view that is. the making of
the land fertile again, it may be found
to be the most advantageous course
that can be pursued. Dairying re-
moves very little from the land and
as it almost always requires consd-
cradle purchases of feed stuffs, mainly
of the heterogeneous kind, there is be-
ing constantly added to the place the
fertility that has been SKINNED off
other farms. 1t is by much the short
est road to the restoration of the fer
tility of the worn down place.
During the approaching winter the
farmer who really desires to make his
work successful will, of necessity, do
a large amount of thinking along many
lines, and the preservation of the pro-
ductiveness of the farm is one that
should not be neglected. He should
constantly ask himself. Twill this plan
keep up the land?" If not, it is not
the best plan for his farm. Let the
planning be done with a view to keep
ing up all the elements of fertility,
of keeping the soil we'll filled with
humus, and with an eye to making the
place more productive each successive
wear.