St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1902-11-22
FARNEll .kAt@,'tlzlE|R.
TIE FARMERS Fd6. .oAT1oN.
The ca .5ervatiOn of Moisture One Of
the Prime Factors in the Fer
IN tility Of the Farm.

IN tility Of the Farm.
ltmay be commonplace to call atten-
ton to the most important thing of
the farm-its fertility-but now and
then these homely commonplaces are
not out of place in farm teachings.
We may talk SO much about the
conservation of moisture that we will
forget that if we make our land rich
enough, and keep it filled with hui
mus, that it will very largely con-
serve it's own moisture. We may talk
SO much about the depth of blowing
and the kind of tillage we shall give,
the use of lime and all the stock sub
Jects until we lose sight of the fact
that the crop comes with any depth
OF blowing and any kind of cultivat-
ing if the land is fertile enough.
1t is not that all these things I
have said we write about are not
very good and very important, but all
OF them together are not as import
Snt as the one first principle-fertil-
ity.
At some Of our institutes I have
heard a learned professor" say that
he did not care how poor the land
might be, he could raise good crop
if he had all the moisture he desired.
He evidently had never seen moisture
simply evaporating to waste around
the old brick wards, and not even
weeds growing. 1--WE all will admit the
Importance, The Necessity, of mois-
ture, but without subdrainage and
without ae(ive fertility in the shape
of humus oce3 ss~of moisture and tow
ers of theory will not produce
crop.
How shall we get humus is the
question. It is true that from far
too many farms the humus has been
farmed, washed and lined away. At
the bottom of the trouble is ignorant
and wicked farming. I do not like
to "call names,' but spade is
spade, and ignorant farming should
be called so, for there is no excuse
for Ignorance in this day, when farm
papers are SO plentiful than one can
not get some of them to stop coming.
But the humus has gone, and to
get it back can not be done in day
or year, for the restoration of it is
an operation in some measure COM
mensurate with the losing of it, and
regaining it is a matter of plan or
a policy, and that plan must en-
brace rational rotation of crops
and blowing down vegetable matter.
The desired end may be much more
quickly and probably reached by
keeping paying live stock, making
plenty of manure, saving it properly,
and applying it wisely.
II have nothing else to occupy
land and to be plowed down will
take weeds. and if the land is too poor
to raise fair crop of weeds, as I
have had land described to me, for
heavens sake move away from it
life is too short and better land too
abundant to fool away time on such
land.
But there is no necessity for de-
pending on weeds. AS soon as posi-
BILE we want to get the clovers work
ing for us. They are the farmers two
handed friend-one hand pulls up and
the other down. What the hand pulls
down from the air costs us absolute
ly nothing, and what the other hand
pulls up is likewise Inexpensive.
To cover the ground in spring, sum-
mer and fall, if we can not get clover
to grow, we have willing friends in
corn, oats, buckwheat, rape, cow
peas and soy-beans to be plowed UNI
it will work for US through the late
fall and winter. If it will not grow,
surely rye will.
These crops are listed to be plowed
under, but I would put them in the
list to feed to profitable animals, the
tiIizers bought, and clover coaxed
along. But many of these crops
may make good growth in short
time. and produce an immense lot OF
stuff to turn under. For instance,
where wheat follows oats. Immediate
" after the oats is harvested, if the
ground is plowed and sown with half
d bushel of corn to the acre, it will
grow two, three, four or more feet
high before the wheat need be sown.
Pillow it under green, and work the
ground down compactly. The second
blowing will give you more fertility
than thirty bushels of lime to the
acre. You say you haven't time to do
this? Then you Rave more land than
you have capital. and that is an I'M
happy lack of combination.-W. F.
Mcspanan, in Farm and Fireside.