The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1902-03-08
FARMER AND PLANTER.
SOIL AND SOIL TREATMENT.
Bad Management Mainly Responsi-
BILE For the Deterioration
of Farm Lands.

pose of growing plants. And it is
well and wisely made. The soil is
perfectly adapted to growing vegeta-
tion. 1t neither grows weary or worm
out in this work Plants were ere
ated to grow in the soil. So perfect
is their adaptation to this business
that instead of exhausting the soil,
they leave it better by growing in it.
The larger growth upon any given
area this year, the larger still is the
possible growth next year. Such is
the mutual relationship between the
powers of the soil and the work of
the plants in growing, dying and de-
caying that it is possible to grow
crops continuously upon the same
soil with ever increasing capacity for
growing more and larger crops on
the part of the soil.
It is the result of bad management,
and not of the demands made upon
the soil by the growing crops. Vege-
tation upon an average is rs per cent.
water, % per cent. air, and only three
per cent. soil.
Good farming returns to the soil
80 much of this organized water and
air that it more than compensates
for the three per cent. taken from
the soil.
Hence it is mistake to say that
the soil is exhausted or made poorer
by the small part it furnished the
crop. Then you ask: Why do we find
fields and farms, after years of cul-
tivation, become poor, or non-pro-
ductive? The causes are many.
Mainly bad management in blowing
when the soil is wet and in blowing
so shallow that the soluable plant
food is washed away or leached out
by the rain-water.
Continuous, clean culture and
burning the waste vegetable matter
helps to hasten this condition.
The power of any soil to produce
depends largely upon the mechanical
condition of the soil. Hard, compact
soils will not turn loose their ele-
ments of the plant food in sufficient
quantities to make large crops. A
good soil must be finely pulverized
soil.
Shallow soils with hard-pan under
them will not yield large crops. They
do not permit root-growth. The
tender rootlets can not pierce this
hard-pan in search for food
Again, they do not furnish sufi-
'cient water for the rapid and full
growth. Plants require very large
supplies of water to keep up healthy
cultivation. About three hundred
pounds of water must pass through
most plants to leave one pound of
dry matter. This would require about
two thousand pounds to pass through
a corn stalk to make one pound of
corn, and the same to pass through
cotton stalk to leave one pound of
lint.
The soil must be fine and deep and
pulverized, not made into mud or
mortar. 1t must also contain rotting
vegetable matter to furnish the
humus, without which plants can not
grow.
Soil in this condition will be rich.
1t will produce large crops. 1t mat
tiers not if it be red or gray, sandy
or clay.
So much of our land has been put
in bad mechanical condition that but
few farms will produce large crops.
Hence the necessity Of using COM
mercial fertilizers. These contain
phosphoric acid and potash, readily
soluable and available. They great
ly increase the yield because of this
fact.
They feed the growing plant. The
more vigorous the plant the more |
they help. Just as it pays to give ex-
ira food to thriving pig or beef,
so we see that even the helpfulness
of fertilizers is dependent upon the
mechanical texture of the SOIL
The farmers constant study should |
be: SLOW can ] improve the mechan-
ical condition of my soil?" Upon his |
intelligence in answering this ques-
ton will depend largely his success
as farmer.
Your bottom land is richer than |
your upland because its mechanical
condition is better. Your garden is |
richer than your farm because it's |
mechanical condition is better.
These are not new discoveries, but |
so few farmers are acting upon these
that they need to be restated.
Where the farmers use two, four
and six-horse plows, their soil is deep
and fine and productive. Any soil |
may be made so by proper treatment.
Your soil is largely thing of your
own making or unmaking.
The success or failure of your |
crops for the next year will depend |
largely upon the condition of your
soil when you begin to plant.-South-
ern Cultivator.
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