New Britain herald., 1916-02-19


 with his property. Some wise old ad- ministrator steps in and sees that only work and responsibility will save the young man, and so he ties that Iiuuid estate up into slow maturing securi- ties which being nothing in the pres ent, but will prove solid and sure in the future if worked out with iude- ment. He saves the young man by making him work for. his patrimony In the same way nature had taken this fine old farm and tied up oppor- tunity where the old ones could not see it. It is hard for a man to see opportunity in the briar bush which scratches his feet, or in the poison ivy which waylays him as he cuts his way through the brush, yet this was the opportunity which Joe Fa- gan found on that old farm. It was the opportunity to buy for one dollar that which he has made worth ten dollars by putting bounce into the opportunity. Ask MT. Pagan about this now, and he will probably toll you that it occurred to him in those early days that warming a chair may be a good way to get cold feet in farming.
 MT. Pagan never went to college,
 
 himself the degree of LID. A man may stand up in his black clothes at commencement, and receive a parch- ment in a language which he cannot read to save his life. He walks off Doctor of Laws, feeling sure that hon or and fame will chase him down though the ages gently tugging at his coat tall TOT recognition. It means so1nethlng more than this to apply the tltle to farm. L stands for lime, l. again for legumes and D for drainage, ana When you stamp these things upon the soils back, you have given it college education. The lime shakes the soil up like an electric shock. Ma ture has tucked plant food away in to dead and slow forms. The lime un- JOCKS IL, sWeetens it, and sets bacteria at work in the underground factory. Why should a man break his back at carrying fertility to the soil where bac- terla will do it for him? The legumes Ike clover Or beans or peas take nit fogen from the air, and fill the soil With organic matter. This is like fill Ing the heart of man with hope and courage. And drainage drives the stagnant water out of the soil and Jets in air, so that the lime and the plant
 
 ask nothing more so that the term LID. when applied to a soil is a badge of honor and profit. MT. Pagan did not know that he was giving this soil such a degree, but mans best work in life is usually done without his knowing what he is up to.
 Not Potato Soil.
 MT. Pagan wanted potatoes, and he was obliged to believe those old grow CTS when they told him that this was not potato soil His \problem was to make the soil fit to start growing po- tatoes at once. Under ordinary cir cumstances he. could have plowed some of the old meadows, spread at least one ton to the acre of air slaked lime, and then planted corn Under such circumstances one of the New England Hints would have given him a fair corn crop. Then grass and clo- yer could have followed with such drainage as it wss possible to do from time to time. There is not a culti- vated farm the Atlantic slope which has ever produced forty crops that does not need lime on general principles. The first thing I should think of on blowing up one of these old farms where nature has sealed up the plant food, would be to use lime, strong, biting lime, not the gentle lime-tone, but the form which has had it's teeth sharpened, and it's kick we'll developed by going through the fire. By lining in this way, good corn could be grown, and then clover would come in This clover would stay just as long as the drains were kept open, and the water levels reduced. When a man can grow clover on his farm, bis problem is easy-that is so long as he can summon up the courage to blow the clover into his own soil and not cut it and sell it to somebody else. That is the simplest way to bring a New England farm back, but Joe Fa>- gan left out the lime.
 What he wanted was potatoes, right from the start, paying crop at once, and an ideal potato soil. That shuts out the lime, for an alkaline soil will encourage scab, and whatever en- courages scab discourages potato cul- ture. Then again the potato crop is a peculiar one. Say what you will, farm crops vary in their appetites and tastes just as human beings do. big crop of strawberries taken from an acre of ground will contain very much less plant food than a ton of timothy hay also taken from an acre, and yet | in order to produce a full strawberry 1 crop it will be necessary to use five times as much plant food as the hay | crop will need. You must consider a crops appetite we'll as it's analysis. | A wolf might show pretty much the l same analysis as a poodle dog !EVery ! farmer who follows a, rotation which 1 includes potatoes will recognize this condition in the feeding ability of | crops. The farm manure will be l GI11nDe6 unOn inc sod. and thus fed tO