The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., March 19, 1910, Page 198, Image 2

About The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette. (Starkville, Miss.) 1910-1920

Image provided by: Mississippi Department of Archives and History

                
Subsoiling and Terraces.
T HAS BEEN assumed by many of our
readers that I have advocated deep sub
soiling under all conditions of soils, while
I have uniformly tried to show that in my own ex
perience, and that of others I have had oppor
tunity to observe, there is seldom any advantage
in subsoiling on level lands that need drainage
more than anything else, and that on light sandy
soils it may be a positive disadvantage.
Where lands are light and sandy it is generally
an advantage to get something of a firmer nature,
a sort of hard-pan, below reasonably deep plow
ing, to check the tendency of such soils to be
leachy; and on U.nds where the sandy soil is too
deep for the ordinary plow to touch clay, very
deep plowing may be a disadvantage. In the level
clay soils, subsoiling will do little good, for the
loosened subsoil will at once settle back as firm
as ever, and the benefit that might at times show
will hardly pay for the extra expense.
But there are lands all over the South where
deen siihsoiliTifi- will ho of immon co hon oflt TVirtoA i
aro the hilly lands of the Piedmont section. On
these lands I know, from practical work on them,
that a deep subsoiling is one of the very best
means for checking the washing and gullying of
the soil. I know, from having wrorked as steep
red hills as are in cultivation anywhere, that if
the land is plowed eight inches regularly and sub
soiled six to eight inches deeper, and a sod is al
ways turned when the land is broken for a hoed
crop, there will be no need for terracing, if the
crop is cultivated level and shallow and no fur
rows made around the hills to catch a head of
water. It is the shallow breaking and the lack
of vegetable fiber to hold the soil together that
have made the gullies in the red hills of the South.
I know that the sod and the deep plowing and
subsoiling will check washing better than all the
terraces ever made, for I have practiced it with
success.
On hills that have for generations been scratch
ed over and the humus completely worn out it
will not do to abandon the terraces all at once.
We must restore the humus by adding vegetable
matter to the soil, and get a sod to turn when
ever the hills are broken, and then keep them but
a season in clean culture and back to the condi
tions that will make more vegetable matter before
another clean hoed crop is planted. But, given
Uie soil conaiuons mat will resist washing, and
then add the deep breaking and subsoiling, and
you will need no terracing whatever. Farmers in
the hills of Georgia who have taken my advice
in this matter have found that I am right.
Another great advantage in deep subsoiling of
the red hills is the retention of the water in the
land and the prevention of damage from drouth.
A Northern man writing recently in reply to a
Southern hill farmer on the red clay, told him
that probably the land needs drainage, for they
found that on upland clay in the North under
drains are important. But the compact, glacier
ground clay of the North is a very different thing
from the coarser texture of the red lands of the
South that have never been ground by glaciers,
and the retention of the water is of far more im
portance on these hills than under-drainage. I f
believe there are terraced lands in the South on i
hills covered with broken rock, where it would be £
of great advantage to dig deep ditches on the t
upper side of the terraces and in these bury the
rocks from the surface below the reach of the c
plow, not for drainage but for the holding of the I
water to soak slowly into the soil below. 1
But on all of our level lands I do not think, j
and the experiments of Southern stations have i
shown, that it does not pay to subsoil, while it I
does pay to turn fairly deep. I
__ I
Notes and Comments on the Implement ,
Special.
_ <
nHAT PICTURE of (he man riding on a disk 1
plow looked very different from (he old- j
_ time single mule scratching the soil with a
toothpick plow. It also reminds me of the maps
in the last issue of the Crop Reporter from the
Department at Washington showing the distribu
tion of farm animals in this country. In the map '
showing the distribution of horses, the large ma
jority is shown to be in the North, while the map
showing the number of mules In the various sec
JUST WHA T IT MEANS.
HERE are yet farmers living here
who buy com and hay and flour from
the West! What does this mean ? It
means that the money that ought to go to
the education of your children, money
that ought to be used in improving your
homes, money that ought to be used to
build that sand-clay road which you
didn’t come to town on today, is being
used in those far Western States to edu
cate people whose acquaintance you
will never enjoy, to make beautiful homes
you will never live in, and to build roads
you will never ride over.— T. B Parker.
--Jj
Lions shows that the South has the majority of
mules.
But there is another phase of the matter not
shown in the map. This is, that the mules were
not raised in the South, but bought from the
Northern and Western breeders, and paid for out
of the Southern farmers’ crops. With only mules
on the farm you cannot raise mules, and while
the mule is probably the best work animal in the
South, we should keep more horses and mares and
raise the mules instead of buying them.
“The one-mule plow and the single sweep are
going to give place to more modern implements,”
says the Editor; and this is going on. for l get
many inquiries where to get the best two-horse
cultivators, showing that farmers are thinking on
this matter. Agricultural improvements move
slowly, but all the same the tide Is setting that
way in the Soutii, and one looking back twenty
years can see how great the advance has been.
J»
Then the Editor says: "Cheap labor has never
made any country rich.” This, too, reminds me
of a visit I paid to a fine farming section in Penn-!
ylvania. It was up on the high plateau in War
en County, a mile or so south of the New York
State line, where I lectured at a farmers’ Insti
ute.
I had a large and attentive audience of well
Iressed, and mainly young men. I was told that
hree-fourths of these men were hired farm
lands, who were getting $25 to $35 per month
md board, and that every one of them was look
ng forward to the time when he would have a
arm of his own. And the appearance of the
arms and farm-houses there showed that th<*
arniers were thrifty, for ail they pay such high
sages. And they are growing crops that are not
marly as good money crops as the cotton crop
iut the labor they have is used in the most pro
luctive way. They are intelligent men who art*
dred on the farms, and they use the most im
>roved machinery, and know how to use it, and
saving plenty of horse power the human labor is
vorth double that usually employed on farms in
he South.
These farm bands do not take half-holiday
Saturdays, they do not run off to baptising* and
unerals, or go on excursions as the negroes do,
jut they have a purpose In life, and are saving
heir money for the time when they. loo. win
.ave to pay the same wage*.
Mr. French well places humus at the head of
‘fficient farm tools, for no matter what median
cal contrivances you have, the humus .. nor«>* .;»r>
0 make a mellow and productive soil. Mr.
I'rench talks about the spots that naturally make
1 good seed bed, but how about the hard gall*
where the plow Jumps out when It strike* them?
It takes harder work to break them because tb<>
tumus is not there to help, and the first thing In
be improvement of a gall Is to get the humus
here to help you.
Jt
I have been on the farm of Mr. Clarendon Davis
n Alabama and know that he practice* what he
preaches so well for tho one-man farmer. Wo
want more one-man farmers, but want all tho
jne-mulo farmers to get spunk enough to get
nore team, and no young man with the proper
‘tiergy need remain a one-mule farmer
v<
Mr. Hufflne# Is right about tho bull Make him
work enough to give him exercise and prevent his
jetting vicious. When on*- of our A A M boy
went up to take charge of Mr. Vanderbilt's cow*
at Biltmore, l went over there when In Asheville
lo lee how he was getting along. He had the
bull In the tread-power runlng the cream separa
lor ami churning butter, and he did it very well
Indeed, and it was good for tho bull, too
Jl
The day of the hoc farmer is passing. The hoe
Ik a costly tool, for It takes a man to every hoe,
mid one man with a wcoder early In the season
can prevent more weed* than ten men can chop
nut. Even in the garden tho hoe is of llttio use
If we have one of the *•«»>-w orkltig hand-wheel
cultivators.
Cotton prices are abnormally high thl* season,
ret there nre plenty of men who will not make any
uroflt on their cotton crops. If their work is count
'd at a fair rate. ’I beae are tho very fellow*,
loo. who are likely to try to increase their acreage
thl* year.
Honestly, don’t you think a farmer should he«i
ate before ho complains of the high price* of
’arm products which he might rals.*?
.riant lotion One Seed at a Time
'[-Equally Spaced-“Thick” or “Thin’n
^VITinSwJ»p2f^Mt!25|<lJ.tll ’’huve'lla.'nr or “ore. °r » P«ck or lew to the acre- <,n« to five
alone and continue* togrow even If cbiiiUiM,1* l.rf*orlt *“'1 einenaeof chopping, aa each plant standi
>‘ale» of cotton on saute land* that now vV.. i /* * ' J* ing— no cluster::-— no skip*. l'roduoe b
Ledbetter Seed Planter I
crack or cru»h bmsI. Hu,, i ,1,,1. vl> Uoc“not /// W A A
regularity, also Pea*, horghutn.Mmet.^ue.X"1^ ^W// // y^^ «
Write For Books Free^W* Hniff
•H* we^iny ^ orjbct ter*y e t Jreinlt114, now*. uJ*a v<M I m.. YOUr
If your dealer does not *ell the LetllM tur.vl ."liM _ * WUF
prepay the freight. Absolutely guarantee.! to pi... -' X \ A.RrvStf? CtmnnlnfT
youmevery way or money refunded without on.-VA 1/ V“UFF,UU
tlon. Write for book, showing this and other style* \ /jffl' EXPeUSe
The Southern Plow Co. ,sijr_ SuNjfiK —alKO half tin* time anil I
• work. i'lanta utand alone.
123 Camp St. Dallas, Texas "H-n'-wng.' Vlr'h
We iihip promptly from Dalian. Tex.; Little Kook. Ark.; Juiknon Min*. Y*^ [Yi>T* \5^V plant ban room to
^r°W ev*” * * C*,°P'
( “Provide wide rows and |.l<-mTo7 m,'!!? V! °f “,ntf,Uin* thc »*>» Wendt
I for the aHHiManr•». .if *i tyor *!«•“ ," tw" n tin* (limits in the rows
I *°r U‘e ad' f 8 tfh ln,;:,,"ral r"Tin °* ",r Weevil, whirh do more
ujcuns " *l than the farmer can do himself by any known
I «„ the THE HARRIMAN seed dropper
■ 'v ' ” csu'!-,?t,droi»s,|hr for " "'*ully following Oils advice be
I \\ Ws fjMfej wani it ,nd h'Jt'Z " milar Interval# Juat where you
■ r ift. no ex i!r nil v»* V rn,,ujh ' »> »'»»* to In.urea g.,.„| atund -
fl Can W, fV |, M ,i,.i ,.,‘h .< hotu>ln« out. s,,.,id„nl have loin-mil,dor
■ also be [\IV A ^•d»dforuM(n this droiaK-r, and I huahel win plant 4
i I permits Vh‘ low ‘ 1,;" ' ■’ wheel r, gulat-adepth and
It Irm J^jS^riaillla u._._Ing quirk germination.
Pj !’an** ^LxBrllg labor, money „,M| i,,*r‘,.1'. »*'• •«»• rn.„,gh iti„ tli.t yr»r In
■ ' ^ li Wnie TODAY and we^»,nil'','! 'I' HJS ,u[ "•* " lhr«*f Ilmen over, I
■ CORN ySWjKgfra —ofUiswork ol hi, W„ ' OWISI ISO I-PIMIP
■ PEAS, 1 1 U,,,cr- »«•> ) uu Wb. r« lu buy II.
E BEANS TH* MNuraeTURMQ co.