The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1913-08-01
SOIL RECLAMATION
AND CONSERVATION
OF MOISTURE TALK
OPPORTUNITY OFFERED THIS
SUMMER TO CONVINCE OF
IMPORTANCE.
MUST INTENSITY CULTIVATION
Farmer Who Studies Soil and Crops
and Gives Attention to His Stock
viii Not Be Satisfied With His
Calling and Want Changes.
(By Capt. T. F. Peck, Commissioners
OF Agricultural

| OF Agriculture.)
Abundant opportunity has been OF
fered this summer to convince any
one of the importance and value ,ol
moisture in the soil for crops while
they are growing.
Many people have ben made to re
alize the value of moisture and have
taken the necessary steps to provide
and conserve it.
Their crops now show the wisdom
of their action. While the crops Of
some of their neighbors have been Sc
riously injured by dry weather, theirs
have grown right along.
!, Any one with ordinary intelligence
can do the things necessary to store
up the moisture. Break the land
deep, turn under the vegetable mat
! ter, subsoil when breaking the land
in the fall. When preparing the land
in the spring, pulverize deep and
thorough, keep a dust mulch on the
surface by frequent thorough shallow
cultivation. You can do all this as
we'll as any other farmer, and when
you do, you will find you have taken
a very decided step in the direction
of good and profitable farming be
cause Of getting your soil in right
condition to hold moisture you have
got rid of your hardpan, and you
have stopped your land from washing
you have made it possible for not
only the rain but the air and frost to
penetrate the broken up subsoil and
thereby increase the available plant
food in your ground.
/ wish every farmer in Tennessee
would give more attention to his soil
and how to increase it's producing ca
pacity. If he could be made to un-
derstand that his soil only differs
from the subsoil below in that the
top soil has decayed vegetable matter
in 1t while the subsoil was not, when
sufficient vegetable matter Is added
to the subsoil and the rain, air and
frost penetrate it, the subsoil be-
comes as rich as he top soil ever was.
That being true, we cannot afford to
go on from year to year blowing shall
low, Unfortunately using expensive
fertilizers in which only portion OF
the available plant food is used by
the crop grown for want OF moisture
during the growing season, but is
leached out by the winter rains and
carried away before another growing
season because the soil is not deep
enough to hold the moisture.
Before we make the headway we
should in farming we have simply
got to make up our minds to cultivate
fewer acres and do it better. There
Is every argument in favor of doing
SO. If you have more land than you
can cultivac right, better pasture it
and prevent it's washing and only Gull
tivate as much as you can do justice
to. The land pastured will bring
you something and that portion which
you cultivate right will produce more
than all would have produced with
slipshod methods. Year by year you
will be abel to increase your acreage
if cultivated land until you can work
out rotation that will include the
entire area with some in corn, some
in wheat or oats, some in peas or soy
beans and some in clover to go back
in corn again.
The farmer who is a student of ma
ture, who ctudies his soil, who stud
les his crops, who gives attention to
his live stock, who can see ard ap-
preciate the good in nature, will new
er be dissatisfied with his vocation or
want to change from 1t to another
because he realizes that he is liv-
ing the life of broadcast possibilities
of more real pleasures and the least
artificial substitutes for real pleas
ure. Why should we want to change?