The Oakley herald. [volume] (Oakley, Idaho) 1908-1961, 1913-06-27
MAN WHO KNOWS SOIL
Moisture and Fertility Main.
tanned by Cultivation.
Condition That Confronts Farmer ID
- Know Exactly How to Go About
Tililno to Get Rssults-What
Campbell Teaches.

Whether done understandingly OF
not. all efforts at cultivating the soil
are primarily for the benefit 81 the
thing In the soil. rather than for that
above it. Air and sunshine in which
the higher orders exist need no cult
walton Therefore Just in proportion
AZ we cultivate the soil understand
ingly does the profit from soil culture
pass from uncertainty to certainty:
from being a gamble to an investment.
writes Eugene D. Smith In the Den
yer Field and Farm No matter what
may happen to the crops above the
BOIL the moisture and fertility are not
lost when true scientific soil culture 10
continued. 1t simply becomes = case
OF deferred dividends to be realized
through future crops. Not that 1t 10
necessary for the farmer to await the
result of the scientific controversy az
to what order of life the micro-orgAn-
isms belong to till the soil under.
standingly. The thing that really con.
Germs him IL to know exactly how to
60 about filling 1t to get results.
And Just here il where H. w.
Campbell has rendered a service to
the man in the field through his work
IN the field, which his opponents and
detractors, working chiefly in the lab
oratory and the library, have not
equaHed and apparently cannot grasp,
While 1t IL merely interesting and
helpful to know the things learned in
the laboratory about soils and soil or.
ganisms 1t Is imperative that the
farmers know what Professor Camp
ben and the new soil-culturists have
proven as to the when and the how
of accomplishing laboratory results on
commercial scale In the held--in
other words the Campbell system OF
scientific soil culture. 1t Is mere child
ish clubbing to say that because soil
manipulation or culture was practiced
by the ancients. Campbell has taught
us nothing new. Books and schools
also are as old as civilization, but
systems of education are originated
frequently. Campbell is not trying to
teach us soil culture; he is endeavor
Ing to teach lot of childish chumps
to cultivate the soil Systematically and
intelligently by actual demonstration.
And some of the chumps refuse to be-
live even the testimony of their eyes
because 1t conflicts with tradition
taught by men suffering from en-
balmed ideas.
Now when Campbell tells me that
can take a field that has been farmed
for twenty years without fertilization
Of any sort; that has ceased to pro
duco crops Of any value; that Ia, 40 i
cording to all the accepted tenets OF |
soil physics, worn out and depleted, |
and that by certain system OF manip |
ulation l can restore that sell to it's |
virgin fertility in one year, natural. !
ly am skeptical, because 1t does not
correspond to tradition and previous |
experience. But II l throw aside my |
and try that system ano
thereby grow fifty bushels of wheat
on such a field in a favorable year
and follow 1t with thirty-flve bushel |
crop In the second of two of the dry
est years ever experienced in thiA
desert, as my brother and myself have
done, and where wheat under common
tillage on a contiguous field produced
only five. then l as an intelligent man
must say Campbell is right and tradt
lion Is wrong
In our Colorado soils that have been
smbalmed and protected tor ages by
he desiccating power of the desert
suns and winds, we have an inexhaust
Bile store of fertility awaiting to be
Unlocked. In the airs that blow over
,ur fields there Is an unlimited sup
,ly of the elements that compose
more than one-half the dry matter in
Ill plants and to utilize this bound.
ess store of fertility In the air and
he soil We are dependent entirely
Ipon the wonder working powers oil
he sun In this marvellous thing oil
hanging the land from desert to gar
len in the using of the Implements
ommon to all modern farmers, bat
nth scientific precision made pos
ible by exact soil knowledge. The
disciples of this new soil culture are
howing us exactly when and how to
o manipulate the soil that the sun.
hine may best exert its wonder work
ng power In our behalf in making the
oil moist, mellow and fertile. These
1en have taught us that the sunshine
ided by the pillow can create these
onditions. but that the pillow alone
ften causes exactly the opposite con. !
ition. Their science lies in the when
nd the how of blowing learned by i,
ing observation and experimenting. /.
Synthetic Milk.