Agriculture for Beginners | Page 8

in all our fields."
The story applies as well to-day as it did when it was first told.
Thorough culture of the soil, frequent and intelligent tillage--these are
the foundations of soil-restoration.
Along with good tillage must go crop-rotation and good drainage. A
supply of organic matter will prevent heavy rains from washing the soil
and carrying away plant food. Drainage will aid good tillage in
allowing air to circulate between the soil particles and in arranging
plant food so that plants can use it.

But we must add humus, or vegetable matter, to the soil. You
remember that the virgin soils contained a great deal of vegetable
matter and plant food, but by the continuous growing of crops like
wheat, corn, and cotton, and by constant shallow tillage, both humus
and plant food have been used up. Consequently much of our cultivated
soil to-day is hard and dead.
There are three ways of adding humus and plant food to this lifeless
land: the first way is to apply barnyard manure (to adopt this method
means that livestock raising must be a part of all farming); the second
way is to adopt rotation of crops, and frequently to plow under crops
like clover and cowpeas; the third way is to apply commercial
fertilizers.
To summarize: if we want to make our soil better year by year, we must
cultivate well, drain well, and in the most economical way add humus
and plant food.
=EXPERIMENT=
Select a small area of ground at your home and divide it into four
sections, as shown in the following sketch:
On Section A apply barnyard manure; on Section B apply commercial
fertilizers; on Section C apply nothing, but till well; on Section D apply
nothing, and till very poorly.
A, B, and C should all be thoroughly plowed and harrowed. Then add
barnyard manure to A, commercial fertilizers to B, and harrow A, B,
and C at least four times until the soil is mellow and fine. D will most
likely be cloddy, like many fields that we often see. Now plant on each
plat some crop like cotton, corn, or wheat. When the plats are ready to
harvest, measure the yield of each and determine whether the increased
yield of the best plats has paid for the outlay for tillage and manure.
The pupil will be much interested in the results obtained from the first
crop.
[Illustration: FIG. 13]

Now follow a system of crop-rotation on the plats. Clover can follow
corn or cotton or wheat; and cowpeas, wheat. Then determine the yield
of each plat for the second crop. By following these plats for several
years, and increasing the number, the pupils will learn many things of
greatest value.

SECTION VII. MANURING THE SOIL
In the early days of our history, when the soil was new and rich, we
were not compelled to use large amounts of manures and fertilizers.
Yet our histories speak of an Indian named Squanto who came into one
of the New England colonies and showed the first settlers how, by
putting a fish in each hill of corn, they could obtain larger yields.
If people in those days, with new and fertile soils, could use manures
profitably, how much more ought we to use them in our time, when
soils have lost their virgin fertility, and when the plant food in the soil
has been exhausted by years and years of cropping!
To sell year after year all the produce grown on land is a sure way to
ruin it. If, for example, the richest land is planted every year in corn,
and no stable or farmyard manure or other fertilizer returned to the soil,
the land so treated will of course soon become too poor to grow any
crop. If, on the other hand, clover or alfalfa or corn or cotton-seed meal
is fed to stock, and the manure from the stock returned to the soil, the
land will be kept rich. Hence those farmers who do not sell such raw
products as cotton, corn, wheat, oats, and clover, but who market
articles made from these raw products, find it easier to keep their land
fertile. For illustration: if instead of selling hay, farmers feed it to sheep
and sell meat and wool; if instead of selling cotton seed, they feed its
meal to cows, and sell milk and butter; if instead of selling stover, they
feed it to beef cattle, they get a good price for products and in addition
have all the manure needed to keep their land productive and increase
its value each year.
[Illustration:FIG. 14. RELATION OF HUMUS TO GROWTH OF

CORN 1, clay subsoil; 2, same, with fertilizer; 3, same, with humus]
If we wish to keep up the fertility of our lands we