The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1910-08-16

90 pcOplS,
a happy progressive community. HUI
mus will make this rich soil, hence
all over the humus-lacking sectiNns
wherever you may go. L say 10
you, get humus. And where
you now have abundance IN
your soils. I urge you to 50 regulate
your business as to keep up the hu-
mus content Of hat soil, or poverty
will sooner or later come upon that
land. Hu1nus filled soils are alive in
very truth, filled WIN little living
bodies we call bacteria The more hu-
mus the more millions Of these bac-
terra, and every added million adds
to the crop producing capacity of
your soil. 1 know Of What am trying
to write, having had experience with
soils of both classes and every grade
between as have all of you practical
farmers. A great many of you are
going to your merchant and assuming
debts to purchase commercial fertllI-
zers when 0 ought to go to your
brains and set them at work devising
cheap Ways for getting hu1nus into
your soils. We in the South must
give especial attention to this matter
as our long, warm seasons and heavy
rainfall are very destructive to humus.
But by reason OF this very fact of
heavy rainfall and warmth of soil,
we have the means within our power
Of rapidly growing vegetable matter,
which in decay make humuS. If the
South had today the humus in her
soils hat Iowa soils contain our
farmers could beat that State by SO
peg cent s. corn production, and
We are going to do it some day, but
few older men won see that day IN
less we get awake to this prime need
Of our soils. Every community in the
South should hav a live aggressive
'humus club" have meetings every
month or twice per month and decide
ways and means whereby the farmers
could the most economically present
their soils-two OF three times per
a coat of vegetable matter
to produce humus.
Some commercial fertilizers will
need to be purchased to start huInus
production by the farmer having the
poorer class of soils, but let the aim
be humus and not money crop"
purchasing the fertilizer for
your corn put 1T down as a fact that
the average farmer producing a
money crop" on the dead, huInus- |
lacking soils of the South Cor any |
where else) will gradually grow
poorer, keeping company with his soil
on the downward path. The most Of
US Will need to make the humus pro-
ducing crops pay their way as we go
along, and to do this we must have
some sort Of live stock that we may
be able to ecu the food value of
the plants before sending them on to
their work of soil building. We are
especially fortunate in that the legu-
lninous crOps-which are our most
soil builders ecaus of
their ability to add both nitrogen and
humus-are also one of our very best
food crops. The poor farmer cannot
afford to neglect the food value of the
as it alone wiil-in the great
majority of cases, where the land IS
too dead peor"-pay the cost
production, INC as the soil in
creases in fertility the value Of the
crop for food will be twice the cost
of production; and as the soil grows
richer the cost of production, of
course, grows less, because we can
a rich soil with less labor
than we can a poor soil, and the seed
needed to properly plant the rich soil
is generally less than that required
to seed the poor, hare soil.
Old men, young men. middle aged
men, let's all get together, enlist the
aid of the women and children. and
start to work this fall to provide an
abundance of huInus for our Southern
soils. We are all agreed that it is our
greatest and most pressing need.
A. l.. FRENCH.
Rockingham Co. n. c.