St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1907-10-05
FARMER AND
PLANTER
HOW TO BUILD UP A FARM.
Prof. Massey Gives Counsel Every
Farmer Should Put Into Practice.

Farmer Should Put Into Practice.
A correspondent in Central Tennes
see writes that he moved there from
Ohio and wants me. a southern man
TO give him some help in the methods
for improving the land in that section
He says that the native farmers tell
him that it Is useless to SOW clover
seed there, as clover no longer sue.
ceeds, and that he need not expect to
raise as good crops of grain or any.
thing else as he grew in Ohio.
Our correspondent, however, is OF
the opinion that the land there that
has run down can be brought up to
a productive condition, and in this ]
fully agree with him. The southern
uplands have been reduced to an une
productive state by bad farming more
than anything else The rolling lands
have been washed into gullies, be-
cause the blowing has been done with
a little ploW and a single mule, and
|
Efforts have been made all over the
south to check this washing by run
ming ridges, called terraces, around
the hills, with the idea of making the
water move slowly. But the terraces
often make the damage the greater
by gathering a head of water to break
| over and make a worse gully than
| ever. What is needed, as | have often
said, is not terraces nor ridges made
by pIows around the hills, but deep
blowing and sub-soiling, to form a
deep loose bed of soil to retain the
| water that will soon be needed to
carry the crops over a drought.
have for many years been trying
| to hammer into the heads of southern
| farmers the fact that they have for
generations been scratching a poor
farm that lies right on top of more
productive one, waiting for a man
with nerve to ues a plow that would
turn up some of the fertile land and
a subsoil pillow behind it to still deeper
| loosen the clay below. I have tried
to teach that after this deep prepare
ton, the cultivation should be shallow
and level to retain the moisture and
to prevent the formation of ridges
around the hills to gather head of
water to make gullies.
Added to these is the important mat
ter of a farm rotation, and the grow
ing of the legume crops that not only
feed the stock, but leave nitrogen in
the soil for the following crops. Not
that rotation alone will do the work,
for rotation is only another means
of getting more and more out of the
land; and the more we get from the
land, the more attention we must give
to the keeping up Of the store of plant
food in the soil. We must have the
legumes to get us nitrogen and to
make manure in the feeding of them
that will help in the restoration of the
fumus or vegetable decay that is the
life of the soil. Now to do all this
we must feed the soil in the things
that it lacks.
Say we are working the land with
cotton as the money crop. Starting
with a crop of cowpeas sown for hay,
we should encourage the growth of
the pease and thus get them to do
more nitrogen fixing by feeding them
we'll with phosporic acid and potash.
Not less than 800 pounds of acid phos-
plate and so pounds of the muriate of
potash should be applied to the pea
crop. This will give heavy crop of
the best hay in the world and on the
stubble We can SOW with no prepare
ton at all Is pounds of crimson clover
seed per acre. In the spring as this
blooms we will turn it under for the
cotton, and with 300 pounds of the
same mixture in the burrows we will
make fairly good cotton crop. Sow
crimson clover seed again among the
cotton at the last working, and dur
Ing the winter spread all the manure
made on the farm from the forage fed
and turn all under in spring for corn.
The peas and crimson clover will give
you nitrogen, but they are greedy
feeders on phosphoric acid and pot
ash, and these must be supplied since
they can not be had from the air.
This is an important fact to be kept
in mind. Some farmers, hearing of
the value of the legume crops like
peas and clover, get the notion til
all they need to do is to SOW these
year after year and get their land rich.
But if these llegume crops are re-
moved from the land and no care
taken to restore the manure, they will
act for the impoverishment of the
land instead of its improvement.
The point of the greatest impor-
lance is the maintaining of the full
supply of the mineral elements, phos
phorus and potassium, in the form of
phosphate and potash salts. II these
are literally supplied to the crops,
the legumes will do the rest and will
save the purchase of the costly nitro
gen, since they can get it in abun-
dance from the air.-W. F. Massey, in
Progressive Farmer.
There is no treat which the shut
up hens will appreciate more than
that which they will get from a bath
in box in which two or three pecks
OF line road dust, a peck of wood
9SbAS and q mound nv 4-1-a 70 .,.l.1.-.