Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1902-06-04
To the Rescue of wornout Lands.

The unproductive pasture and mead,
ow lands of New England are in no
sense worn out and exhausted they
are not dead, never to be re-
vived again. Their returns are
small, simply because they lack
care and attention. Stir them up, get
air through them, and then add some
available plant food so plant life can
get started; they will quickly change
from their unpreductive condition,
giving satisfactory returns.
All things considered, New England
is one of the best hay-raising sections
of the whole country. Much of these
lands are giving good farm return
with neither artificial feeding nor
care. Think what they would surely
do were they handled in business
like way. The New Hampshire col-
lege farm is one of the most vivid ex'
amples of what skill, science and care
will do in the way of rescuing worn
out lands. When the college was
moved to Durham, the farm repre-
sented one of the most depleted and
broken-down farms in the whole New
England district. But IL tons of hay
were cut that first year; it required
some time to produce enough forage
for the small number of animals kept.
But what change in few brief year!
The past season finds every field on
the old farm under cultivation, and
newly seeded to grass, and two large
barns filled with hay and corn to over
flowing. and 80 head of cattle and
horses supported, besides large num-
ber of hogs.
How was this done? By tillage,
crop ratation, manures and fertilizers.
What was done for the improvement
of that farm is possible for every
farmer in New England. The first
step is tillage, and thorough tillage at
that: chemicals and crop rotation will
not show their full value unless good
tillage is followed.
Soil must be stirred up and filled
with air. This practice will improve
the physical condition of the soil; and
changes the unavailable, unassimilable
plant food into available plant food.
1t losens the soil, it puts life in the
soil: it makes a comfortable home in
which the plant may grow. Then
crop rotation adjusts the different
plants to the environments of their
food. Finally, chemicals supply the
needed plant food to get a good AMI
vigorous growth from the beginning.
We have found it advisable in bring
ing up the New Hampshire College
farm to add the following chemicals
just before sowing: Muriate of potash
$50 pounds, nitrate of soda 100, and
acid phosphate 200 pounds per acre.
This mixture was scattered broadcast,
then narrowed in. followed by the crop
seed.
One favorable season the yield was
increased from less than a half ton of
hay to the acre to more than three
tons. An eight-acre field three years
ago was treated in this manner by fall
and spring seeding, and the following
summer % tons of timothy-clover hay
were cut The last summer tritie
less than "a tons were harvested. 9th
er fields were treated in a similar way.
In every case the yield has been
doubled and trebleJ by tillage and fe--
tilization.
Does it pay? Nothing pays better
than when hay sells for SIS and $40
per ton. The expenditure of $40 per
acre for labor and fertilizers will be
returned in a single year, with a profit
of as much as twice what was origin
ally spent, and then for four or five
years everything is profit, except the
cost of harvesting the crop.-Charles
w. Burkett, in American Cultivator.