Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-03-21
farm and firesiar.
Hundred Bushels Corn Crops.

A farmer who says that his land has
and on which he has once made 500
pounds of lint an acre with 500
pounds of fertilizer an acre, wants TO
put that land in corn this year, and
wants to know what fertilizer he shall
use to make 100 bushels of corn an
acre.
Perhaps, If the season is very favor
able and he piled the fertilizer on
with a lavish hand, he may possibly
get the corn. But he will find that
every bushel in excess Of what he
would have had without the fertilizer
will cost him about as much as 1t
would sell for in a fair market in the
south where corn is usually higher
than elsewhere.
The mere getting of big crop Of
corn regardless Of expense is not good
farming. There is an old Latin
proverb: Memo repente turpissima
fuit." Which means that no man
ever became suddenly vile. The down.
hill road is always by degrees. The
same is true Of the soil. No soil that
was formerly fertile and productive
ever became suddenly poor. 1t has
taken a long series Of soil robberies
to get it poor. The vile man may,
by the grace of God, repent and
change his life suddenly, but the land
must get back by the same road that
reduced it to poverty, but the road
must be reversed, and we must adopt
measures to restore. through good
farming, the matters that formerly
made it a virgin soil. The long cul-
tivation in a clean-hoed crop has
burnt out all the organic matter. The
nitrifying organisms have been starv-
ed out and the soil is acid. 1t runs
together and crusts hard, Is colder
than it was when new, and 1t dries
out rapidly in summer and crops suf-
fer from lack of moisture.
1 was on a farm last year where
the former owner made twenty-five
bushels of corn an acre in a very
favorable season, and that farm had
on it a crop Of corn of 81 1-2 bushels
an acre all over the thirty-acre field,
and had nothing applied to it but
crimson clover sod and some lime
narrowed in after turning the clover.
What has made the change in that
soil? Simply getting back the or
ganic decay Of which it had been
robbed. II has had manure on it for
other crops. l have been on a farm
in Alabama where the owner claims
that he makes corn at a cost Of 8 1-2
cents a bushel, and he does not do 1t
with fertilizers, but with clover and
"Cowana."
To try to get 100 bushels Of corn an
acre on land that has been cottoned
for many years will be merely a gam
BILE with fertilizers. The way to 100
bushels of corn per acre is through
good rotative farming, the growing of
legumes and feeding the forage and
making manure. This sort Of farm
ing enabled Mr.. c. K. McQuarrie to
make 100 bushels of corn an acre in
west Florida, and it will enable any
one in the south to make 100 bushels
Of corn over his whole field and make
it at a cost that will leave him profit
on the crop, while there would be
none left from trying to get 100 BUSH
els merely through a lavish use Of
fertilizers. 1t is no credit to a far
mer to make 100 bushels of corn an
acre at a cost Of 500, but when he
makes 1t at a cost of $3.50 for the 100
bushels it shows that he is farming
and not gambling with fertilizers
w. F. Massey in Progressive Farmer.