Norwich bulletin., 1916-11-18

(Written Specially for The Bulletin.) { Up to O score of years ago oats were fair crop on the John Farmer place. We used to grow them regu- larly. They made up a part of the usual corn, oats, clover, timothy TO- tation. We should as soon have thought of ceasing to plant potatoes as of ceasing to sow oats. They used to grow on all sorts of soil, gravel ly, loamy, dry or wcttish with about straw which stood up against any thing short of a whlrlwind, and filled solidly. with good, long heavy heads. From thirty to sixty bushels an acres of lawful weight was the common production.
 Then, about twenty years ago, there came a sudden change. Our cats fail- ed,-failed utterly and shamelessly. We were surprised hut by no means downhearted. True, such thing hadn't happened before in three gen. erations, but then, like all other far mers, we had become more or less wonted 10 having the unexpected and unprecedented happen It was only a seasonal fiuke, we reasoned, and wouldn't be repeated So we sowed more oats, next spring, without feel ing any special worry about them
 And the crop was, again, com- plete and wretchcd failure.
 Then we began to sit up and take notice. What did it mean? As Joe" Allen used to say, the only way to find out was by ascertainirg. So we proceeded to ascertain. We tried some half-dozen patches of oats, next year, under as many differing condi- tions. Some were sown after corn but with a little special oats fertil- ger narrowed in: some were sown sitter potatoes, with a light dressing rf fine stable manure likewise har- rowed in. Some were sown on new Nround, sward turned under and fer tiliZer top-dressed: some were put on s gravel loam ard some on pure loam: some on dry ground and some in the black soJ of recl2 med swamp. EV- cry patch was on land which within the preceding ten or fifteen years had borne good oats.
 And the verdict of every one Of these pat: hes, regardless of character of soil or methods of cultivation or variety of fertilization was the same, failure.
 Then we began series of tests on the one field which mad formerly been our banner oat-lot We tried deep blowing and mere scratching: we tried COW manure and horse manure and pouiry manure: we tried half-a- dozen mixtures of commercial fertil- izer: we tried land plaster and air slaked limo: we tried everything we could think of or the interested neigh bcrG couid suggest. All no go. Not a decent return did we get from any s.'rt of method or any breed of seed.
 So. at last. we gave it up. We rather like to experiment as far as feasible. within reason. But, like Sther farmers, we have to make a liv- ng off he farm and haven't, any state appropriation 10 pay experiment. ing costs. We stopped trying to raise oats.
 But nost of the neiqhbo-s kept on sowing some. They had varying suc- cess, and we noticed tnat, of recent years. therc haven't been so many big oat fields in evidence as there used to be. Last year, while my nearest neighbor who had three fields in cats this season,-two on his own farm and one on farm mic distant which he was working on shares,'' told' me that he thresne6 out the best looking lot of the three and got about eight bushels to the acre of oats weighing twelve pounds to the meas ured bushel. The other two lots he had moved and stacked up out doors, where the stock could get at them during the winter and eat what they found worth eating. They manifest ly were not worth doing anything else with. He also told me, having wider knowledge of the condition among aDther" oat-growers than l, of various other failures. On the big Shaler farm two fifteen-acre fields, he said had been left uncut not being worth harvesting even for straw. Dayton lad also left his uncut, for similar 'easons. The Dunwoodys had cut and hreshed theirs, but found them so fight and chaffy that they were un-