The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-08-08

one of the several agricultural colleges
 undertakes to advise a farmer as to
 the crops that will pay him best to
 raise on his farm he reports to the
 owner of the land in terms of crops
 He tells one man to pull up his peacn trees and plant onions. Another he ad-
 vises to plant a peach orchard, or an apple orchard, as where the peach will
 grow the apple may be raised, and
 Zrioa versa with reservations on ac-
 count Of the early or late visitations of frost He tells another man that his best prospect is hay, and yet an other that he should go into the small fruits business
 But the expert reads the sOn in terms of geologic history. AS the coarse grains of a peculiar Kind of gravel slip gritily through his fingers his imagination goes backward well into the abysm of time and he notes the giant prehistoric ice-f1eld grind its way across the area of New England, wearing itself away as it progressed and deposittng here and there some of the earth 1t had scraped off of some opposing ridge or mountain somewhere along it's century-paced route from the north He sees it Ste2lthily come upon Q low hill. push against it, rear itself up it's sloping side, creep over it's crest, carrying along with it all of the loose son and & good part of the rocky sub stance Of the hill to be doled out to
 
 there leaving a pocket of earth that may have become 1oosened by the warmer suns rays. and again leaving behind some stubborn ledge a quantity of sand, gravel and debris
 The expert knows that all soils are formed by three major processes: Dis tntegTatfon of the foundation rocks; the action of the waters of the rivers ana streams, and the action of the winds that take land from one area
 nd of
 miles. from it's source. These three processes are in operation all the time, now as well as when the land had no human inhabitanfs- The action of the fee fields and the volcahos was for the most part prehistoric, and has practl- caIly ceased, so far as New England is concerned But the ice fields and tn @ other processes have provided New England with a. great variety of soils. In Rhode Island the government ex- perts list eleven kinds of soil. In Ply mouth county Massachusetts, they fonud sixteen varieties. In the Nashua area, New Hampshire, there are eight. The Vergennes area, in Vermont and New York, has nine. The Orono, in Maine. the rebgion has eight kinds of soil all Of glacial origin, while the Car fbou region in the same state, has eleven Merrimaok county, New i Hampshire, has seven, all also of gla- | cial origin, and all derived from gran
 
 would imagine there would be but one or two varieties of soil In the lower l portion there are nine.
 have been at the pains to call at tention to the great variety of soil pre- vaflfng in all sections of New England in order that the great diversity of possible crops may be realized, and to draw attention to the manifest fact that the New England farmer must know just what sort of land he has to r--1 fa lies on the slope from the valley to the hills. is able to make money from his apple or peach orchards it does not follow that Smith, whose farm may be in the valley, or under the shelter of a sturdy ledge of rocks, or on the ex- posed hill crest, may safely invest his money in peaches or apples. Perhaps one farm is composed of soil brought by glaciers from the granite regions of New Hampshire, while it's peighbor is chiefly composed of erosiohs from the underlying limestone. The owners of these two farms must pursue diff ferent policies, and cultivate different crops, if they hope to be prosperous. This wide diversity of soils in New England explains in part the i'll suc- cess of a proportion of the New Eng land farmers, as well as promises much to the contemplating farmers of the present and the future There is no typical New England soil, there v and in all of the prairie sections. In Oregon, for example, a farmer may adopt the policy and methods of the man who has been successful barring peculiarities that are apparent and well defined In New England it is extremely hazardous to attempt to rely upon the experience of the next neigh ( Dor. I The New England soils are, most of l them good mediums for fertilization. F. eXCont 1 lime is needed, and are thus fitted for l the reception and assimilation of the fC furnus. The condition in New Eng { land is the reverse of the condition in much of the West. There the mineral Fundamentals are lacking and there is an excess of hurnus- The soil of Tex z as for exanpIe, has an almost bottom less deposits of humus, but lacks in minerals. Certain crops grow luxuri- | oue1y there, and certain others cannot I be assimilated- Once I was travelling about New z England with a soil expert from the Of Agriculture at Wash f fngton, and after several days looking ( bout. and after the expert had spent several weeks going sabout in New England, I asked him how much more I 4he land under cultivation in New t England could be made to yield, With ( out going to the extreme of intensive ( cultivation. and he said, 'fTen hundred I -.~ cent" gasped. I looked my C 5o11bt -'Yes" he said. 'I mean it Ten T hundred per cent This result could I only be attained, however, by the use ,f the very best knowledge and meth ods- It cannot be hoped for. here nor .Isewhere. from this generation of far rners But how easy it would be to ! add a hundred per cent to the pro \ 5,,rtfvaness of the New England f arms, To double the yield of the total e area under the plowi" r The facts about the value and pro t suctiveness of New England land are .,zil,z established The census has a shown us that New England improved u