Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1908-02-15
Tells How to Preserve
Fertility Of the Soil
Jos. Z. Wing Relates His Experiences in I'm
proving Soils Whose Fertility
is Exhausted

have travelled over many of tho
old Virginia fields, where Washington
and the colonial settlers once lived.
At one time the fields were thriving
and beautiful; but now it makes you
sad to see them, and the ruin that man
has wrought. There is no fertility at
all. The country is in ruins. But
the old plantation homes are still
standing. The great old trees are
about them, and trailers, and tangles
of vine and Towering shrubbery cover
the old homes everywhere. Inside of
these homes you will meet the finest
people in the world, but of another
day. You will meet women there,
and love them, especially the young
ones. There are no young men in the
country. They have all gone west.
The old fields could not keep them.
In one little village, out of % boys.
there was only one left.
These southern people first titled
their soil by slave labor. They did not
take care of the soil. The land was
robbed of its fertility. Now God is
coming to take charge of it. He has
put brush on it, and some day, maybe
that land will be perfect again. But
they are taking hold down there. They
will again build up the soil, but how
much better would it have been to
have kept it up in the beginning
Wheat fields near centers of civiliza-
tion, you can buy for forty dollars per
acre. How much better 1t would have
been, if they had not so run the soil
down!
Wheat is one of the most beautiful
things in the world to grow. When |
was boy | could follow your reapers
and bind wheat as fast as it came
Just once around the field But wheat
alone is going to ruin almost every
country where it is planted.
In Ohio, a farm next to me was at
one time very rich. In the year 1866
the farmer owning it put in ten acres
of Indian corn. and off of that ten
acres he got one thousand and ten
bushels of corn. He rotated that field
with corn, and wheat. and timothy
hay, and then corn again. He did not
believe in clover; did not believe in
manuring fields, but followed rotation.
The corn went down to rs bushels; to
sixty bushels; to forty; to thirty, and
down to "a. Then the sheriff came
and sold him out. | bought the field.
restored it with a little manure;
then little commercial fertilizer;
then some clover; after clover, corn
again, and l got 45 bushels. Then
little more manure and clover, and
then corn again, and this time sixty
bushels. Then alfalfa, which yielded
we'll. This year we plowed the alfalfa
sod up, and next year it will be in
Indian corn. If / do not get rs BUSH
els of corn per acre, will write and
| tell you about it. | am going to
make that old field grow one hundred
and one bushels of corn, as it did
years ago.
While in Wyoming several years
ago, on a stock ranch, was contin-
ually thinking of what could be done
on the old home farm. The place was
old and run down. The farm was so
little. and poor! Not enough in it to
keep a boy there! Finally | gave up
good situation in the West to go
home. Father took down the old ac-
count from the shelf, and said:
"My boy, | want to tell you what
we have done here"
He read to me what he had sold:
wheat, timothy hay, corn, all the var