The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1914-09-17
!. To THE FARMERS
OF TENNESSEE
BY CAPT T. F. PECK,
Commissioner of Agriculture.
A Big Factor in Crop Growing.
(By R. T. DeBerry)


one to which too little attention ha
been paid in the past, is the physica
texture or mechanical condition Q
the soils upon which they are grown
The average farmer thinks that 8
long as his soils are filled with plan
food that he can produce profitabl
crops, when, as a matter of fact, tn
availability of the plant food conten
Of the soil governs. the crop produc
ton to much greater extent than tn
amount of such food.
The only practical difference exist
ing today between those soils which
we term WORKOUT and the same soil!
when the virgin forest had just beer
removed lies in the difference in thu
physical texture of those soils. chem
ical analysis showing that nearly iden'
teal amounts of plant food are pres
ent with the exception of nitrogen, but
owing to the bad mechanical condi'
tion of the soil, plants cannot make
use of the food which is there and ex-
cept for the fact that we improve the
condition of these worn soils to some
extent by stirring or cultivation, we
could grow no crop at all.
Nature, in preparing the earth for
mans habitation, stored up vast guam
titles of plant food but left 1t to mans
ingenuity to render or keep available
for the use of plants the necessary
food She has at the same time fur
nished him hundreds of object lessons
as to the best methods Of doing this
work, but man, with his wasteful
ways, has not kept faith with nature
in these matters; so that today, in
stead of having carefully observed the
plant food stored up for his use, he
has lost irrevocably large part of
his patrimony, and this and succeed
ing generations are confronted with
the problem, not so much of keeping,
but of restoring the elements hereto
fore lost
One of the means of both directly
and indirectly improving the physi-
cal texture of our soils is by the use
of lime, it's application to heavy clayey
lands rendering them easier of culti-
walton by making them more porous
and lighter of texture, while its APP
plication to sandy lands has the OPP
posite effect, binding them together
and making them more retentive OF
moisture. 1t also corrects acidity OF
the soil and promotes the growth of
legumous plants, thus giving us lar
ger amounts of vegetable matter to
turn under. This in turn furnishes
food for the countless thousands of
beneficial bacteria which give life to
our soil, and where any free nitric
acid is present in the soil 1t unites,
with the lime and form nitrate of cal
cium, substance carrying nitrogen
in the nitrate, or readily available
form.
In growing crops for the purpose
of improving the physical texture OF
the soil, it is better to grow some of
the legumes, such as alfalfa, crimson,
red or the other clovers, cow peas or
soy beans, as we not only get as much
green matter to turn under as from
the non-leguminous plants, but We re-
ceive the additional advantage of
whatever nitrogen the former class of
plants may have gathered from the
air.
OF these crops the clovers are to be
preferred on account of their enor-
nous root growth, there being suffi-
cient of this, even where the crop is
mown for hay, to greatly increase the
productive capacity of soils where
they are grown, and the growth of
these crops will obviate the necessity
of subsoiling, as their roots penetrate
to such depth that when they decay
the subsoil is rendered porous enough
to allow the water to go down with
out the land having to be broken.
Where too much hardpan exists to
allow the roots free passage down.
ward it will be better to break deeply
with disc pillow or subsoil following
the mold board pillow, but this should
be done far enough in advance of
time of seeding to give the ground
chance to settle and become firm or
the firming can be done by narrowing
and subsurface packing.
BY systematic rotation of crops
in which the leguminous crops take
their proper turn in occupying the
ground, the application of barnyard
manures, the use of the commercial
fertilizers supplying the mineral ele-
ments-phosphoric acid and potash,
the turning under OF the leguminous
crop occasionally, breaking the land
deeply now and then and cultivating |
carefully, there is no reason why our
soils should not be restored to some |
thing like their former productive
capacity.