The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1902-03-25

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tural progress, ready to adopt the
most improved scientific methods.
Without the teaching of agriculture
in the public schools, progress will
be UNNECESSARILY slower, but it will
come as a result of the work Of
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES AND FARM
PAPERS.
These are growing steadily, though
not so rapidly as we should like to
see, in popular favor. We must re-
member that the agricultural college
is a comparatively new institution
and that there is no reason to be dis
couraged at the record already made.
And while the full agricultural
courses are doing much to help the
young men able to take a complete
college course, the short courses in
agriculture and dairying offered by
some institutions are rapidly becom-
ing popular and sowing good seed in
all sections of the country. 1t will
be a great victory for scientific agri-
culture when we reach the point
where the adult farmer will not con
slider it odd or discreditable to spend
a winter at 'school" learning i'm
proved methods of conducting his
business.
But at this time farm papers are
doing more for progressive farming
than are our agricultural colleges.
The farmer who has the welfare of
the craft at heart can do no better
work in it's behalf than by inducing
his neighbor still, agrioulturally
speaking, in the ruts of Ignorance,
and the bonds of incredulity, to read
some wide-awake paper that breaches
the gospel of up-to date and scientific
agriculture.
I have discussed at such length
these educational matters because
without them slow and dificult will
be the work of bringing about any
other changes for the better that I
might name.
WORN q SOILS AND COMMERCIAL FER.
TILIzERs.
The average Southern farmer who
finds farming not very profta BILE,
decides that his soil is worn out, and
he signs for the "good old days be-
fore the war;" when every field
showing a waning yield was "turned
out" and a "new ground" cleared up
to take its place. Yet in the majority
of such cases it is probably true that
the fault lies not in the soil, but in
it's treatment. The soil needs not
new fertility so much as the man be-
hind the pillow needs new ideas of
practice.
To illustrate, DR.. Charles W. Bur
kett some time ago collected the
analyses of AZ so called exhausted
soils, and found that, on an average,
each contained within the eight
inches of surface soil nearly 1000
pounds of nitrogen, nearly 5000
pounds Of phosphorio aoid and H.
600 pounds of potash. "There,
says he, sin those exhausted soils
to the depth of eight inches, was
enough plant food for a hundred
crops of wheat of 30 bushels per
acre" Why, then, are these soils
not productive? Because of these
four evils:
The one-orop system, scratch
blowing, poor drainage and the ex
haustion of humus.
And what is the remedy? Not in
turning these lands out to broomsage,
nor in leaving them to the tender
mercies of ignorant negro tenants
while the land owner moves to town,
nor yet in buying enormous quaint
ties of commercial fertilizer for
them. But as surely as the four
evils named have brought waste and
ruin, 80 surely will the four reforms
now named make these waste places
blossom as the rose:
Rotation of crops; better tillage;
proper terraoing and ditching the
growing of leguminous or other crops
to turn under to supply the needed
humus.
But before considering further
the reclaiming of our exhausted
soils" let Us take up another matter
that must go hand in hand with it,
and on which in a large the
prosperity of Southern agriculture
depends: