The courier-index., 1920-06-18
NOTABLE EXAMPLE OF SOIL
 BUILDING
(Continued from first page)

etc, that are used in growing the crop. For a number of years he kept ten to twelve brood mares, and besides supplying his own place with mules he shipped carload of three year olds each year. buying enough to fill out the car. At this time Mir. Felton has on the place four mares weighing from 1000 to l. 200 pounds. These mares are bred regularly to a Mammoth jack of good type. MT. Felton has on his place an 11-year old mare that has folded seven mule colts.
 After weaning at eight months old these mule colts are fed corn and oats and lespedeza and c0wpea hays. And at two and one-half to three years old they are broken and gwen light work.
 This year MT. Felton will fatten a5 hogs, 26 of which he has all ready sold in the neighborhood. He now has 19 that are finishing on corn and tankage and which he will kill during the cold weather for use an his place. Close to this hog lot he has several fields that are put
 in corn and peas. The hogs are allowed to graze the peas and waste corn after the corn is pulled. They are then penned and finished on slop corn and tankage. Besides his meat hogs, Mr. Felton has four Duroc- Jersey sows and thirteen pigs which are running on bluegrass and bur clover pasture. In addition to the pasture they receive about a one fourth ration of corn. During the summer the hogs run on Bermuda and lespedeza pasture.
 This farm has about 250 acres in short staple cotton,-Mebane Vandiver and Wannamaker-C Cleve- land. The larger part of the crop is made on shares, the landlord furn- ishing everything but the labor and getting one-half the crop. However, Mr. Felton actively superintends the cultivation, and has made pro- vision to prevent the excessive soil depreciation that usually accom- panies the growing of cotton on the shares. Each share-cropper must plant one-third his acreage in corn, in which MT. Felton sows cowpeas As his share-cropper picks out the first crop of cotton, Mir. Felton has his day labor go in be- hind them with a one-row grain drill or Gee-Whizz cultivator and put down about a bushel of Abruzzi rye to the acre.
 Of his 250 acres of cotton, he has 75 acres of it either in Abruzzi rye or winter barley. Mir. Felton will pasture his cattle on this barley and rye during the bright winter days, and turn the crop under ia 1he spring to prepare the land for corn.
 Mir. Felton's success as farm CT is not reduced to his ability to produce large yields of crops. He started with very poor land and has built up fertility until his average production is about half a bale of cotton to the acre, forty bushels of corn and one to one and one half tons of lespedeza hay. These yields are not large, but they are considerably above the average for the soils of this section of Arkan- sas- With his rotation of corn and .cDwpeas, followed by cotton and rye, and application of barnyard manure, he has no doubt increased the nitrogen and organic matter in his soil. No form of phosphorus has been used, although we are inclined to believe that acid phosphorus would be profitable on this land, and possibly a readily soluable ni- tregenous fertilizer like nitrate of soda or sulphate of ammonia would greatly increase the yields of corn, cotton and small grain when these crops seem to lack vigor
 Possibly MT. Felton's success is due in part to the fact that he readily makes use of methods that have proved a success in his sec tien. For instance, the agricultural agent of Lee county, k. B. Whitak~ CT, has shown that alfalfa can be successfully grown on the ridge lands of the county when they are built up in fertility, lined and in- oculated. Mir Felton has a ten acre field that was sowed in peas las spring The peas were cut off, thf land manured and the manure an pea stubble plowed seven inches deep with three mules These were then narrowed three times with a sar ion harrow He ewnected to alant his alfalfa this fall but the ime ordered did not arrive in time. i