Rural Retreat times. [volume] (Rural Retreat, Va.) 1892-1918, 1911-11-10
FERTILITY OF THE SOIL
Must be Increased to Get More
Farm Products.
Land Should Be Deep, Well Drained,
Full of Humus and Contain Plenty
of Plant Food In Available
Form.

If we want to grow plenty of all
farm products for home use and to
sell at price the people in our towns
and cities can afford to pay, we must
increase the fertility of our soils. Our
greatest asset is the fertility of our
soil. just in proportion in which our
soils are worn out, N that proportion
is our prosperity diminished. No liv
ing man has ever acquired the art of
growing good crops of grains, grasses,
cotton. or vegetables on poor land. 1t
takes good land as well as good prepa-
ration, good seed, and intensive culti-
walton to make good crops.
A fertile soil is deep, well drained,
full of humus, and contains plenty of
plant food in an available form.
We deepen soils for the following
reasons: First. to increase the water
holding capacity; second, to let the
water escape from the surface with
out running over the ground and wash
ing it off; third. to permit the air to
circulate freely for considerable
depth in the soil; fourth to secure
roots to go down to perpetual mois-
ture; fifth, to increase the area from
which plant may obtain food
There is only one way to deepen
thin soil and that is by blowing a lit
tie deeper every time it is broken and
by turning under vegetable matter
such as corn and cotton stalks, oat
and pea stubble, grass and trash.
Poorly drained soil cannot be prop
erly prepared in the spring; the rapid
evaporation will keep the soil cold re-
CARELESS of the temperature of the air,
thereby retarding the growth of the
crop; the roots of the growing plants
will spread out near the surface and
when the soil dries out during the hot
summer, the crop fires" or burns up
before maturity; large quantities of
water evaporating from the soil makes
it compact and solid and heavy to
work.
Broad shallow bitches made with
pillow and dump scraper are by far pref
cradle to bitches made with spade.
The broad shallow ditch is much bet
ter for drainage and can be easily
crossed with plows and cultivators
and thereby kept clean.
The soil must be kept full of life
giving vegetable matter or humus 1t
must be in loose, porous. and open
condition so that air, water, and plant
roots can easily come into contact
with every grain of it. The soil must
be full o. vegetable matter to prevent
it from packing after every heavy
rain and to increase the storage ca
pacity for water and thereby enable
it to hold enough water to carry the
crop through the longest drouth in the
summer though heavily fortified. The
soil must be full of humus to furnish
food for the microscopic life that
makes the plant food in the soil avail
able for plants. 1t matters not how
much plant food the soil may contain,
it will not yield maximum crops I'M
less bacteria are present to make the
plant food available for crops The
number of bacteria in the soil closely
follows the amount of humus in it
BY suitable rotation of cotton, corn
and peas. oats followed by peas, pea
nuts, soy beans, or lespedeza every
acre Of our soil that is devoid of vege-
table matter may be filed full in three
years The Investigation of crops,
the turning under of corn and cotton
stalks, oat, pea, soy bean, velvet bean
and other stubble, grass and trash,
and the application of barn yard
manure will soon fill our worn out
cotton lands full of life-giving vege-
table matter or humus.
The soil must contain an abundance