The Indianapolis journal., 1903-04-28

j. w. Ingham in Ohio Farmer.
There are some things about farming
which seem mysterious. and which different
authorities explain in different ways. Some
men think they are capable of explaining
everything.
farmer showed me his growing crops.
His cornfeld, with the exception Of small
spot where an old barn had stood, was
covered with plants three feet high, green,
rank and robust Where the barn had stood
the plants, not more than a foot high. were
yellow. sickly and spindling. The old barn
had been used for stabling horses. cattle
and sheep for seventy years. There had
been no excavation for the foundati ton. the
walls had been removed, the plowing well
done, the soil made mellow, and was filled
with particles of rotten manure. 1t had
received the benefit of liquid manure for
nearly three-quarters of a century. Why
was the corn poorer where the old barn
had stood? In all reason it ought to have
been better than elsewhere. Had the rich
soil under that barn which had never grown
plant to exhaust it, been shaded until it
had become sour and nearly dead? Are
there living germs in the soil which must
have air and sunlight to enliven and make
them active like the yeast in the dough. in
order to make the ground productive?
cannot tell.
This is not the only instance that / have
known where the soil under building had
become deadJ 1 tore down an old barn
which was built by my grandfather sixty
years previous, and had been used for
stabling oxen and horses. The drainage
from the upper part of the barnyard passed
under it. The soil under it was black, and
apparently very rich, but for three or four
years nothing would grow thriftily where it
had stood
1t is a mystery that plants and trees grow
at all What makes the sap in tree Tin
violation of the law of gravity ascend its
tan trunk to the highest leaf--a hundred
feet or more?
Shading land for a short time and then
removing the shade is known to make it
more productive. Why not the longer
shaded, the greater the benefit? The dense
| shade of a clover crop is no doubt one of
| the agencies by which it improves the soil
in which 1t is grown.
Waldo F. Brown once stated that barn
door had been blown into a meadow, and
after remaining a short time was removed,
and that the grass where the door had
lain was much better than in any other
| place in the field. No doubt he stated
| truly, but how could that be? Do you say
1t served as mulch to prevent the evap-
| Grafton of the soil moisture? The grass
| did not grow under ii while Ii lay there.
1t turned yellow as if stricken with jaun-
| dice. and it only required an hour or two
/ after the door was removed for the sun
| and wind to dissipate all the extra moisture
that had been preserved under it. Did the
door act as trap 70 catch and hold the
| fertilizing gases which escape from the
air? 1 do not know. My father cut
| maple tree In the winter that stood beside
meadow, and some of the smaller limbs
when cut off were blown into it. The grass
which grew up through those limbs was
| taller and thicker than In any other place.
| How could those bare limbs without leaves
provement in the grass? They furnished
| a very imperfect shade and scarcely any
| mulch
Every old farmer knows that exposing
| the naked soil to the sun and wind all sum-
| mer by repeated plowings and harrowngs
| Will insure large crop of wheat unless
| injured by accident Of weather or insect
| plaques. If shading the ground enriches
il. exposing it seems to do the same thing
| Who can explain this anomaly?
Farmers know that the best remedy for
a drougthy season is to keep the cultivator
! constantly going in the corn and potato
| fields as long as the tops will permit: and
some of the writers tell us that the object
| Is to keep the crust broken and make
mulch Of dry earth to prevent soil evapora-
! ton by arresting capillary action.
The farmer stirs his mown grass to let
the sun and wind dry 1t faster, and 1t
| surely does ii. Why doesn't the repeated
stirring of the surface soil in his cornfield
do the same?
They tell us that frequent cultivation
| breaks the capillary tubes in the earth and
stops the ascent of ground water to the
surface, where it would be evaporated and
| vator make just as many new tubes as il
breaks of the old ones? 1t may be that in
| a dry time the earth gets more moisture
| from the atmosphere than from the sub
soil. When the cultivator turns up fresh
earth to the surface which is colder than
| the air, moisture is condensed just as the
ice pitcher condenses moisture from the air.
which we see in drops on the outside of
| the pitcher.
l plowed up part of an old barnyard ex-
| pecting to raise big crop of potatoes 1t
| broke up rather lumpy but by repeated
| harrowings and pounding with an old ak il
| planted in the proper season, with a good
yielding variety. The season was favor
able, the ground well cultivated, and not a
| weed to be seen in the patch. The tops
were large as well as tall, fell down, curled
| around, and covered the whole surface of
| the ground. l had never seen such great
tops on potatoes, and confidently expected
an enormous yield. l intended to astonish
! my neighbors, and perhaps exhibit my po-
| tatoes at the county fair. What was my
| surprise and disappointment in digging
| them TO find none larger than hens eggs,
| and but few in hill! What caused such a
miserable yield? Do you say there was too
| much nitrogen in the soil, which caused
| them to grow all to vines? The answer is
there was an abundance of all the SUBJ
stances necessary to produce a good crop
of potatoes. and they should not have taken
up any more nitrogen than they wanted
unless they did ii to insult me!