Carroll County democrat. (Huntingdon, Tenn.) 188?-1971, 1913-07-25
ABOUT FARMING
Conserving Moisture and S OF
Reclamation
BY CAPT. T. F. PECK

| N4AA - - = AANAA
Abundant opportunity has been
offered this summer to convince
anyone Of the Importance and val
ne of moisture in the soil for crops
while they are growing.
Many people have been made to
realize the value of moisture and
have taken the necessary steps to
provide and conserve it.
Their crops now show the wis
dom of their action. While the
crops of some of their neighbors
have been seriously injured by
dry weather, theirs have grown
right along.
Anyone with ordinary intelli-
gence can do the things necessary
to store up the moisture. Break
the land deep, turn under vege-
table matter, subsoil when break
ing the land in the fall. When
preparing the land in the spring,
pulverize deep and thorough,
keep dust mulch on the surface
by frequent thorough shallow cul-
tivation. You can do this as well
as any other farmer, and when
you do, you will find you have
taken very decided step in the
direction of good and profitable
farming because in getting your
soil in right condition to hold
moisture you have gotten rid of
your hardpan, you have stoppsd
your land from washing, you have
made it possible for not only the
rain but the air and frost to pene-
trate the broken up subsoil and
thereby increase the available
plant food in you ground.
wish every farmer III Tennes-
see would give more attention to
his soil and how to increase its
producing capacity. II he could
be made to understand that his
soil only differs from the subsoil
below in that the top soil has de-
cayed vegetable matter in it while
the subsoil has not, when sufficient
vegetable matter is added to the
subsoil and the rain, air and frost
penetrate it, the subsoil becomes
as rich as the top soil ever was.
That being true, we cannot afford
to 90 on from year to year plow-
ing shallow, Unfortunately using
expensive fertilizer of which only
a 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 Roadway
we should in farming we have
simply got to make up our minds
to cultivate fewer acres and DO 1t
better. There is every argument
in favor of doing so. If you have
more land than you can cultivate
right, better pasture it and pre-
vent its washing and only culti-
yate as much as you can do justice
to. The land pastured will bring
you something and that portion
YOU cultivate right will produce
more than all would have produced
with slipshod methods. Year by
year you will be able to increase
yonr acreage of cultivated land
until you can work out a 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
into corn again.
The farmer who is a student of
nature. who studies his soil, who
studies his crops, who gives at
tention to his live stock, who can
see and appreciate the good and
beautiful in nature, will never DE
dissatisfied with his vocation or
want to change from it to another
because he realizes that he is live
mo the life Of broadcast possibilities
If more real pleasures and the
least artificial substitutes for real
Measure. Why should he want
~ change.