Yerington times. [volume] (Yerington, Nev.) 1907-1932, 1914-06-20
SEE TO 1T THAT YOU DO NOT
ROB THE SOIL.
The Worst Thing to Kill Soil is the
One-Crop Idea.

"Starve the soil and it will starve
YOU" This is often repeated, but all
tilers of the soil do not heed it. There
are many abandoned, or non-paying,
farms to prove the truth of the axiom
The man who depneds upon the soil
to supply him with the necessities and
comforts of life shuold study methods
for its treatment which will enable
ii to do this without the sacrifice of
its fertility.
In this age of progress and advance
ment in agriculture we all know that
those qualities of soil which give
strength and vigor to plants can be ex
hausted and that the success in agri-
culture depends upon system OF soil
management which retains the soils
power to produce. All soils contain
more or less of plant food constitu
ents. AS soil which contains the great
est amount of plant food is desig
mated as fertile soil
One of the first aims of the farm
er when he selects piece of land on
which to establish his home is to Sc
cure tract of land that is fertile. The
thing which should concern him most
is the adoption of a system for its
management that will keep the land
fertile AS his success depends on pro
duction it is important that the land
lose none of its power to produce.
Starving soil consists in taking
from it the plant food constituents
without returning to it any of these
essentials to plant life. 1t matters not
how fertile soil may be in its virgin
state. its fertility may be exhausted
by the continuous growing of crops,
which extract from the soil the plant
food materials and return none of IT
The worst enemy to a fertile soil IS
the one-crop farmer. 1t is generally
understood that the continuous plant
ing of one crop will soon exhaust the
land, or at least transform the land
from state of fertility to one of un-
productiveness. Continuous planting
of one crop on a soil does ont al
ways render the soil non-fertile.
though it may render it nonproduct-
i've A soil which refuses to produce
does not always do so because its
plant food has been exhausted, but
because of the mechanical conditions
of the soil This condition is brought
about by the system of culture re
CURED to produce the same crop year
after year. Following the same
method of soil management year after
year is not good farming. 1t both
impoverishes the soil and the farmer
who follows it.
A soil cannot remain productive
when deprived of organic matter.
As soon as the humus of a soil is ex
hausted it becomes droughty and non
responsive to cultural treatment. The
remaining plant food in the soil is not
available to the plant in its undiS-
solved state. 1t requires moisture
to dissolve it. Then, too. it must un-
dergo a chemical change before it can
be dissolved. Soil bacteria is neces-
sary to produce this change Soil
bacteria is essential in production
This bacteria does not exist in great
numbers in a soil in which there is
no organic matter. Organic matter
then plays an important part in soil
fertility and productveness. The
surest and most economical way to
keep a soil productive is to rotate
the crops grown on it; to plant legume
crops to pillow under in green state
for the purpose of producing humus.
Not a blade of grass or any character
of weed growing on the soil should
be permitted to be burned or removed
from the soil They should be incor-
porated in the soil The barn-lot
manure should be spread over the land
and plowed under. 1t has marvel
Gus effect in building up a WORKOUT
soil and if applied in abundance will
restore to the land large per cent of
the plant food taken out by the crop,
A farmer should never permit the
fertility of his soil to be reduced. A
system of soil management that re
duces production is system which
robs the soil, which in turn robs the
farmer.-Orchard and Farm.