Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1909-01-28
a,,ROADs D A e. 81
Sa2ss. Egs.i GOV
1lNpR!oVlENffES\ff NpR!| lZ1! :
"a z.
HOLDING NEW SOIL.
The Time to Begin the Work of I'm
proving is at Very First.

The time to begin to save and fer
tilize the soil is when it is new and
rich in plant foods. Land which has
always been in forest or wild grass
and has never been broken by the
plow has high possibilities when
brought under cultivation. The soil
of such lands is full of the roots of the
plants which grew in it and the sur
face is more or less covered with dead
vegetable matter. After the soil has
been plowed and these plant remains
decay much humus is formed and good
crops can be grown.
New fores land just cleared and
plowed does not as a rule produce a
large crop the first season. But when
the immense quantity of tree roots in
the soil beg TO decay and give up
their fertility the soil becomes very
fertile and will produce large crops.
The roots OF trees are very large and
penetrate the earth to great depths.
When they decay they not only leave
available plant foods in the soil but
leave deep openings in the subsoil up
which deep soil water may rise and
down which the roots of cultivated
plants can easily go in search of sus
tenance. 1t requires several years for
all of the tree stumps to fully decay,
but as they decay they gradually give
up fertilizing elements BY the time
roots and stumps have all rotted on
new land the soil should be in it's high
est state of fertility and none of this
fertility should be allowed to wash
away or otherwise go to waste. Some
people farm new land carelessly,
thinking that because it is now rich
that it always will be so. They burn
the trash on the surface and allow the
top soil to wash away without any
thought of the future
Much new ground is planted to corn
for the first three or four seasons.
These corn crops are cut for fodder
and the entire crop removed from the
field leaving the soil bare. If the land
b. at all hilly, the top rich soil of
these new fields washes away during
the winter and early spring. This an
nual los of soil fertility is very large,
and difficult to replace. There is sell
dom any attempt to either save the
fertility or to increase it.
The richness of new ground, in the
opinion of the Journal of Agriculture,
should not only be conserved but in
creased as cultivation goes on.
Manure and commercial fertilizers will
do as much, if not more, good on new
ground as they will on old ground.
Commercial fertilizers should be used
only when there is humus in the soil,
and in new ground, If anywhere, their
use is to be commended. All refuse
vegetation should be saved and used
on new ground so that the supply of
vegetable mould would be increased
rather than diminished. Instead of
hauling away or burning the stalks of
corn crop they should be carefully
plowed into the soil where they will
decay, hold the wash, and feed the
soil. In like manner, all remains of
rotten stumps and roots of trees
should be covered with soil to decay
beneath its surface.
Thee is no rational need of allow.
ing new land to diminish in fertility.
but very much need for it to increase
in fertility.