Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1756-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities external link and the Library of Congress. Learn more
Image provided by: Mississippi Department of Archives and History
Newspaper Page Text
$500 More a Year farming: How toilet It | BY LEARNING WHAT TILLAGE IS AND WHAT IT DOES. T«it Butler. NY OPERATION used by the farmer to stir and pulverize _ the soil is tillage. The essen tial idea in tillage is pulverization. There are many natural forces at work, however, which tend to pro duce the same results aimed at by the farmer in his artificial or me chanical operations on the soil which we group under the term, tillage. These natural forces are not tillage, but a simple statement of some of them will servo to improve our un derstanding of the effects of tillage. 1. The freezing of the water in the soil, by the expansion which takes place when water freezes, tends to force apart and break down mass es of soil particles which have be come glued together to form com pact masses or clods. The Southern farmer largely misses this great nat ural aid as compared with its force in assisting Northern farmers to maintain properly pulverized soils. 2. Air and water, and the oxygen t • n *■ It < k VS 4 rs n »» I it rk . ti‘ t> i m It I Iwtc mtlt - •• » ' • Mi r* » v ** • (IV/ V V •• (am, are also nature's soil builders; which means (hat they tend to dis solve. change, and break down, coarser soil particles aud vegetable matter in the soil, into smaller par ticles and simpler forms, so that plants may use the materials which they contaiu. 3. Burrowing animals, like the earth worm, for instance, also work otor and pierce the soil aud allow' air and water to enter, giving these an opportunity to exert their forces for the aid of tho farmer in chang ing aud pulverixlug soil masses and particles. 4 The roots of plants also exert a tremendous force in breaking apart soil masses aud dissolving plant foods. Extreme examples of the dis integrating force of plants are often seen in the moving and separating of large rocks by tho roots of trees and tho penetration of seeds and tubers by such plants as quack and nutgras*. The w riter has seen quack gra«s grow through the Irish potato and nutgrass grow through a large bean. With the roots of plauts fill ing the soil the force of each may be . - - - It X .a a X. .. ___ a . #•t _ a # 'tuuii, U\t\ IUV *» fs fs * vh«l” VHVV V w l million* of them In pulverizing the soil is tremendous. The largo and deep penetrating roots of some of the legumes, like alfalfa and cow peas are good Illustrations of this • las-* of nature's aids to the farmer. Why Tillage is Necessary. These are nature’s methods of soil building, for In these and other ways soil* have been formed from rocks and vegetable matter. These are also nature’s methods of keeping the soil iu condition for the growth of plants; but they are too slow and Inefficient to maintain the soil in a suitable condition for the best growth of the cultivated crops of man. The farm plants that used to feed and clothe man and his servants have been developed to greater value and productiveness by the artificial help of man, through tillage aud other means; aud to maintain and Increase the value and yield of these crops, tillage by the farmer must be added to the forces of nature In keeping the soil in the most favor able condition for their best growth. In a more definite and specific way let us now discuss how tillage or the pulverization of the soil brings about conditions more favorable to plant growth. To understand these we must first fix in our mind the simple, but all-improtant fact, that plants ob tain their foods taken from the soil, in solution only. To this fact we must then add two others: (1) that water, the great universal solvent, is the means by which plant foods are dissolved in the soil and carried into the plants, and (2) that the more finely pulverized a substance is the more readily it is dissolved. To appre ciate this last fact we must realize that any given mass or particle of soil is affected or operated upon only on its outer surface, which is ex posed to the soil water, and that if this mass be broken up into a large number of pieces, the outer surfaces of all these exposed to the action of "■ _ friendly and Immensely helpful plants. What Tillage Does. Tillage as practiced may be gen eral, as breaking and harrowing be fore the crop is planted; or that which covers only a part of the ground, as between fruit trees or between rows of corn or cotton, and is called inter-tillage. We also speak of tillage as deep or shallow. If plowing or breaking is in mind, deep tillage would be that, say 5 inches or deeper; while shallow tillage in such cases would be less than 5 inches. In speaking of inter-tillage anything deeper than 2 Vz or 3 inches would be regarded as deep, while shallow tillage would be less than this depth. Shallow or deep tillage, therefore, is a relative term and of no definite significance. The effects of tillage may be briefly stated as follows, and in sub sequent articles on this subject we shall discuss each more fully: 1. Increases the feeding ground for plant roots. WHAT I DID NOT SEE. Clarence Poe. HE writer has just returned from a tour of several hundred miles of farming country in Illinois and Wisconsin among some of the richest and most progressive farmers in the world. Beginning next week I shall tell what I sdw that explains the almost unparalled prosperity of these farmers, but perhaps a better explanation may be found in what I did NOT see. For example, take this list: No mules. No cabins. No gullies. No ohl fields. No forest tires. No big plantations. No one-horse plows. No loafers at -depots. No sheep-killing dogs. No small work liorses. No stumps In the Held. No commercial fertilizers. No factory-slave children. No farm homes unpuinted. No one-room schoolhouses. No farms without live stock. No unarmic-looklng children. No land without cover crops. No cows or mult's with ribs show j *»>«• No burning of vegetable matter. No parasite store at every cross roads. No farms cut up into piddling patches. No surface-scratching miscalled plowing. No furm home without sanitary conveniences. No fanner “bossing” hands with out workiug himself. And it might be said in con clusion, that there were no ne groes and consequently no white men and women either waiting for negroes to do work they might do themselves, or abstaining from what their hands found to do from any absurd idea that it was “be neath them.” the water will be very much larger than the outer surface of the original mass or clod. For instauce, a mass or cube 2 Inches on each side pre sents 2-1 square inches of surface; but if this same mass be divided once in each direction, or 8 pieces formed, the outer surfaces of these eight pieces will present 4 8 square Inches, or double the soil surface, to the action of the water. The increase of matter exposed to the action of water, air and other Influences, caus ed by the breaking down of sofl masses, is enormous and seems al most uubelievable to one who has not stopped to study the subject care fully. It must also be remembered that in a tlnely pulverized soil we have the most favorable conditions for the operation of many other nat ural forces favorable to plant growth. The larger the number of soil particles, the larger the number of small spaces between the soil par ticles. These permit the entrance of air and water more freely, make it possible for the small root hairs of the roots of plants to permeate all parts of the soil, aid chemical changes and favor bacteriological ac tion by making a more favorable place for the multiplication, growth and activity of tTiese microscopic, 2. Aerates the soil. 3. Hastens chemical changes, set ting free plant foods. 4. Brings about conditions more favorable to the life of those germs which render plant foods available and less favorable to those germs which tend to lock up plant foods sc that plants cannot use them. 5. Increases the water-holding power of the soil. 6. Saves moisture by lessening loss by evaporation. 7. Affects the temperature of the soil. 8. Serves to incorporate organic matter with the soil and hasten its decay. 9. Destroys weeds. Too frequently the Southern farmer seems to look upon tillage solely as a means of killing weeds, but in the foregoing statement of the effects of tillage it will be readily seen that it serves many other very important purposes. How Peas Helped the Oat Crop. Messrs. Editors: Last year I no ticed a field of oats, upon part of which cow peas were grown the year before, and a part upon which they were not. You could tell the portion of land Nitrate of Soda Tho Modern High Grade Straight Fertilizer Cheapest, Cleanest Odorless Can be used anywhere on any crop Convenient for use Increases your farm values $3.00 worth of Nitrate on an acre of Cotton has given an increased crop of zoo lbs. of Cotton. Cotton has sold very high this season. Books on the crops which inter* est you will be sent free. Sfnd name and address on Postal Card DR. W. 8. MYERS Nitrate Propaganda 71 Nassau Street, New York upon which the peas were grown be fore entering the field. It was found that the portion previously planted in peas yielded twice as many oats. MARK H. SMITH. The Legumes Not Yet Appreciated. Messrs. Editors: Our interest in the legumes and the acreage in them is enlarged in proportion to the new facts given to us by scientific inves tigators pertaining to their values as farm crops and soil improvers. ine leeuiug vaiue oi nay iruui me legumes ranks very much higher than that from the grasses. They are richer in protein which bears about the same relation to hay that nitrogen does to fertilizers. A ton of well cured legume hay is often worth as much for feed as a ton of wheat bfan. With this knowledge of their high feeding values and the fact that on good land we can grow two or more tons per acre, it is not at all strange that our farmers are becoming more interested in them. Moreover, when we consider their value as soil improvers by the addi tion to the soil of the free nitrogen taken from the air by the bacteria on their roots, the advantages of the deep penetration of their roots, thus facilitating drainage and aeration of the soil by which inert plant food is quickened and made available, the large quantities of humus added which give life to the soil, and the results in the crops that follow, the strange thing is that our interest in these crops is not even greater than we have yet manifested. The following table gives us an idea of their fertilizer value, a ton of the dry hay containing pounds of plant food as follows: Nit. Phos. Acid. Pot. Alfalfa . 43.8 10.2 33.6 Vetch . 54.4 19.4 48.8 Crimson Clover, 41.0 8.0 Cowpea . 39.0 10.4 Soy Bean . 46.4 13.4 Red Clover.... 41.4 7.6 Japan Clover. . 41.4 6.0 Bur Clover_ 43.3 10.7 32.0 From this table it will be seen that the legume hays contain more nitrogen per ton, the most of which is taken from the air, than does an 8-2-2 fertilizer. The idea of taking this valuable fertilizer element from the air instead of purchasing it at 20 cents per pound in commercial fertilizers appeals to our progressive farmers and why should it not? T. B. PARKER. The manure spreader must be used freely. I regard it as one of the ma chines that grinds out money for me.—D. Rankin.