The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1902-04-22
RESTORING A WORKOUT FARM.

l do not doubt that great many
of your readers are getting to point
when they begin to think they must
do something to restore the failing
fertility Of their farms. If they are
not they ought TO be, for l know by
my own experience that it is much
easier to keep land rich than to make
it so again after it has been badly
run down. / will, therefore, give
your readers some of my experience
in putting back into the soil the fer
tility it had lost, and hope that some
may be wise enough to take warning
and begin to feed the land before it
gets hungry.
l inherited a farm in Virginia.
The land had been in cultivation
over two hundred years and all the
virgin strength was gone even be-
fore my father bought it sixty years
ago. But he was man of wealth as
we'll asia good farmer and it was not
hard for him to make the land rich
again, but he had slave labor and
used hundreds of tons of guano.
When got possession, it had been
in the hands of a very poor manager
for many years and was poorer and
had more gullies on it than when my
father bought it. Still I tackled the
job with the determination to make
it what 1t was in my boyhood.
The first thing to be done was to
divide the farm into suitable fields
and get more sheep, hogs, cattle and
horses, for there was very little
stock on the place. The next thing
was TO build roof over the barn,
yard so as to protect the manure
from teaching rains. Then as fast
as could, had the underground,
pine, willow and persimmon, grubbed
out and the gullies filed up. All
this Las was done by the regular
hands the place and did not cost
very1mgeh. All this had TO be done
you see,F before I could even get in
shape to begin the improving of the
soil.
The land nearest the house was not
a very difficult problem, though
some of it was awfully poor. 1
divided it into lots of three to five
acres, planted it in different crops
for hog pastures, using some fertii-
zers and some manure. The crops /
used we're crimson clover, winter
oats, Canada field peas, early corn,
cow peas early and late, sofa beans,
snd sweet potatoes. got two crops
off each lot as the later crops followed
the earlier ones. My hogs ran on
the different lots in succession, and
were fed some grain all the time. I
kept an account with them, every
thing except the manure and fertili-
zere, and the pork cost me 1925
dressed, and ] sold it for $425. Two
or three years of this treatment,
taking nothing off but pork, i'm
proved the lots so rapidly that it
hardly looked as if they had ever
been as poor as death. The amount
of stuff left on the ground to be
turned under, soon filed the soil
with humus and then began to get
the full benefit of the fertilizers used,
and the crops of all kinds, in three
years time, got to be very rank
Then the land was devoted to grow
ing tobacco, which is the most profit
able crop to grow in that section,
and more was fenced for the hogs.
The farthest outlying land was
used for sheep pasture, but as there
was a great deal of it, 1 grew lot of
as fine sheep as ever saw, without
any feeding to speak of exec pit when
the ground was covered with snow,
which was very seldom. Inever did
do anything more with that part of
the farm, so will not refer to it again.
But the remainder of the land to be
devoted TO cultivation was hard
problem. Where the soil was washed
off entirely, or the gullies filed up,
there was no humus at all, and
noticed the frat year that nothing
would grow on such absolutely bare
places, however much manure or
fertilizer was put on them.
For such places I found that the
only thing TO be done to get start,
was to get some vegetable matter
into the ground And the best way
TO do it is to spread over the surface
just as early in the season as possible,