The Port Gibson reveille., 1911-01-12
BETTER FARMING.

II INC CAAtCu DthteS WllcH Snail Sfedtly
increase the productiveness Of the soil.
"This country can not feed the popula-
tion which it must necessarily have
within comparatively few years if it
does not change its agricultural meth
DDS"
The above sentences are taken from
an address delivered before the National
Corn Exposition at Omaha, Neb., by
James j. Hill, one of the greatest think
Srs of the age. Mr.. Hill realizes the
. Act that we are abusing instead of using
the soil, and that consequently its pro-
dletiveness is rapidly decreasing. The
problem that confronts every farmer is
how to economically increase the pro-
duc.iveness of his soil
Now let us study the subject of soil
fertility for short time. Soil must be
well drained, deep, full of vegetable mat
ter, and contain plenty of plant food in
an available form III order to yield
maximum crops.
A deep soil is certainly desirable.
This is proven conclusiyely by the good
cotton and corn that grows on "baek
burrows" and the small cotton and corn
that grows in dead furrows." There
is one way, and only one way, to deep
Ell thin soil, and that is by blowing a
ntt!e deeper every time t is broken
and by turning under vegetable matter,
such as corn and cotton stalks, cat and
pea. stubbles, grass and trash.
The soil must be in d loose, porous
condition, so that the air, water and
plant roots can easily come into contact
with every grain of it. The soil is a
reservoir to receive and hold water to
supply the needs of crops. If it is de-
void of vegetable matter, it will pack
and run together after every rain, and
will not hold enough water to sdpply
the needs of crops.
The first step to be taken in order to
increase the productiveness of the soil
Is to reduce the washing to minimum.
A field thoroughly pulverized to depth
of, say eight inches will readily absorb
three inches of rainfall, and soil III
this condition will suffer no surface
washing from ordinary rains. We ought
to SOW some crop like vetch, winter
Clovers, rye, oats, barley or wheat in
our cotton when we lay it by, to bind
the surface particles protect it from
washing in the fall and winter, reduce
the teaching out of the plant food to
the minimum, and add vegetable matter
to the soil
TUIsI1 he 10 Il, IIxr 1oov1-
ened, filed full of humus, and thereby
made more porous and absorbent of wa
ter, covered with vegetation as much of
the year as possible-still these meth
Ods may not be sufficient at all times
to enable the soil to absorb all of the
rain as fast as it falls. It is, there
fore, advisable to provide. good hill
side bitches with fall of from one to
two inches in twenty feet to carry the
surplus water out. Of the. Geld
Mr.. Hill says: "Give us system of
farming in the United States which shall
greatly increases the produetiveness of
the soil" Diversified farming and stock !
raising is the only system of farming
that viii increase the preductiyenes of
the soil. The too exclusive culture of
cotton always means poor SOIL Our
lands need rotation of crops, including
leguminous crops, and much of it should |
be devoted to the live stock industry. |
A better balanced system of farming is
needed-one that viii include more crops |
TO enrich instead of wear out the land; |
one that will include more live stock to
consume the surplus products and the
leguminous crops that must be grown
to enrich the land and to make manure
to still further enrich the land
By suitable rotation of cotton, corn
and peas, oats followed by peas. or les
pedeza, every acre of our rundown farms
might in a few years have its producing
capacity more than doubled. Such
system of farming would in few years
regenerate our worn lands to where one
third of the farm planted in cotton
would yield as much as the two-thirds
now in cotton yields. Under this sys-
tenn of rotation with the legumes, the
lands of this state would need only
ground phosphate rock, which can be OBJ
tanned for about five dollars per ton.
This system would rapidly increase the
of the soil and at the
same time save millions of dollars in
fertilizer bills. q
We are told in bulletin issued from
the Louisiana Station that one acre of
Spanish peanuts grown on very poor
land at Calhoun contained one hundred
and ninety-two pounds of nitrogen,
worth at commercial fertilizer value at
least twenty-five dollars. One acre of
velvet beans contained one hundred and
ninety-one pounds; and one acre Of cow
peas, one hundred and eight pounds.
These crops made from two to three and
q half tons of feedstuffs richer in food
elements than wheat bran. Where such
restorative crops can be grown on land
and fed to stock without serious loss in
fertilizing value and the manure from
the stock saved and put on the land,
is there any excuse for poor land? No
sountry on eartn has such advantages
for growing soil enriching plants, and
yet no country makes SO little use of
them
a three-year rotation of cotton, corn
and peas, oats followed by peas. good
blowing and the addition of a little
ground phosphate rock at the Calhoun
(La.) Station brought the cotton up to
bale and more; the corn yield to thirty
seven bushels, the oats In one case to
1ver sixty bushels and peavine hay to
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