The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1903-07-11
AGRICULTURAL
DEPARTMENT
seasonabIe Suggestions.

This has been a perplexing season to
the farmer, for the weather has been such,
over vast part of our best agricultural
country, that farmers have been unable
to guide their matters or to know what to
plant or when to plant, for In many cases
crops were but barely up when FROST came
and all was lost; then others on the roll
ing lands suffered from washoufs and
drowned out. n the crops after having
been planted and worked over were COW
cred by water, entailing an entire loss.
The loss of crops was not all, for this
loss is small one compared to the dam
age done the soil. which damage 1t will
take years to mend. But this is not the
only bad feature, for In addition to all this
we have had such cold weather that crops
could not grow and the soil being too
wet to work the weeds and grass have
overrun the crops, until we find at this
late date many crops not yet worked and
the weeds and grass have got such start
that 1t would now be economy to aban-
don many of these crops-plow them up
and start anew, for there Is a great acre.
age that it will never pay to spend time
on in trying to clean them out Then
again seed time has Tapped way over into
harvest time, and now harvest time, too,
is fast passing, and yet we still have
thousands of acres of rich farm lands
not yet planted to crops of any sort.
Now the perplexing question is what is
best to do with these lands? Well, this
is a hard question to answer. and the an
swer will have to depend largely on the
condition of the soil. Some soils are yet
too wet to work and the indications are
that they will remain so for the balance
of the season, or at least so late that no
crops can be planted. Such lands as these
had better be left now, and the energy
that would be required to prepare them
spent on working crops that give some
promise of making something. 1t Is now
estimated that we have lost by floods of
our rich bottom lands 800 miles in length,
and varying much, of course, in width.
This loss cuts great hole in our crops,
and more particularly so with the corn
crop, as a great portion of this loss is in
the river bottoms of the north and west.
and embraces largely the lands used in
growing corn for commercial purposes.
So with this loss In acreage of our best
corn lands we can see that the crop will
be short Then we have lands that have
grown up in weeds, and have a great
rank growth of weeds-in many cases the
weeds are almost as high as a man.
This class of land, where dry enough to
pillow, should be turned, weeds buried I'M
der and allowed to rot before any crops
are planted. The best way to manage such
land as this Is to keep the harrow right
after and up with the pillow, narrowing
the soil fine so as to cover the weeds I'M
der as closely as possible. so that they
will heat and decay at once Now, 1t Is
not safe to plant seed on such land until
the crop Of weeds turned under has had
time to pass through the heat and become
decayed. for the heat will often destroy
the seed planted and prevent a stand.
AS to what may yet be planted on these
lands is also a question, but there are sew
eral crops which. If the land can be put
IN good condition. may be yet planted All
along through the country I see farmers
breaking land and planting the ninety day
corn, sorghum. peas and milets. These
may all be planted yet, and especially the
COW or stock peas. There is ample time