Oxford Democrat., 1907-07-09
Restoring Lost Fertility.

To most New England farmers the
matter of fertilization is of supreme
importance. 1t would be interesting to
know how many thousands of Maine
farmers have worked nearly all their
lives in an effort to build up the fertility
of a run-out farm by keeping stock
alone. This method is at best slow
and discouraging one, and while We prob
ably never will get anything that will
quite take the place of barn manure we
have no longer got to depend upon it
alone to build up the run-out farms of
our state. There are thousands of farm
ers who have many more acres than they
can possibly fertilize with the amount Of
barn dressing which they can make or
obtain, and many acres are moved over
year after year for paltry five to eight
hundred pounds of second grade hay,
when they should be producing at least
two tons each. I have in the last doz-
en- years built up the fertility on two
run-out farms. the first by never selling
any hay and keeping all the stock I
could carry on the farm, and getting
such other fertilizing material as could
with hard work without paying out
money, and the last by growing potatoes
on commercial fertilizer and using what
barn dressing had on those portions of
the farm which were not adapted to the
growing of potatoes. By this method it
does not make any difference how large
farm man has nor how badly run out
it is, he can, in few short years, have
it producing immense crops Of hay, and
then if he wishes to drop the growing OF
potatoes he has his farm where he can
keep the maximum amount of stock in
many years less time than 1t could be
done in any other manner. Let any
man who has several acres of we'll drain
ed soil which are producing but few
hundred pounds of hay per acre plow as
many acres as he may wish and plant to
potatoes, using one ton Of high grade
fertilizer per acre, one-half in the drill
at time of planting and the other broad
cast or along the rows few weeks later;
give these potatoes clean, thorough cul-
ture, plowing the land in the fall again
after digging the potatoes, and sowing
to oats and seeding to grass as early the
next spring as it is possible to work the
ground, and not only will he get a crop
of oats of from 80 to so bushels per acre,
according to the season, but he will get
the year following very heavy crop of
hay which On my land often runs as
high as three or more tons per acre.
Now, after taking off this first crop of
hay, if he has any which he can spare
give the field top-dressing OF barn ma
nure, but do not apply any barn manure
to the ground previous to sowing the
oats for there is plenty Of fertilizer left
in the soil from the ton used for the po-
tato crop to grow the oats and they will
stand up and fill out much better. Barn
manure will grow rank growth of oat
straw which is almost sure to lodge
badly, killing out the young grass plants,
resulting in a much smaller crop of
grain, and also of hay following.
This method makes simple and easy
way to bring up run down farm with a
good profit on both potatoes and oats,
and if the hay thus raised is fed on the
farm and the manure properly saved and
to the fields, we will have
brought much nearer the day when a
farmer will be ashamed to own that his
grass lands do not average him two tons
Of hay per acre.. A. Rogers in Maine
Bulletin.