Part 30

But in the course of eight or ten years, this process renders the soil extremely light. The action of frost upon it, after the hogs have snout-plowed it, leaves it in the spring as light and dry as an ash-heap. The corn will still grow as well, but every high wind will throw it down; the soil has not tenacity enough to hold up its crop. Clovering has been resorted to by some good farmers as a remedy; but without pretending to know certainly, we suspect that clover will not fully answer the object. Clover on hard soils, separates the particles and renders the ground lighter, and adds vegetable matter to its composition. This is not what bottom land needs. It is too light, and rich enough in vegetable matter.

We believe a better course will be found in putting bottom-lands to small grain. To be sure, there are difficulties in the way of this; but good farming is nothing but a compromise of difficulties. If the month of May be cold and backward, wheat will do well and yield freely. But if the spring is forward, May warm and wet, the grain will run rank, break down when the head begins to fill, and, of course, the berry, however plump and well it might have looked in the milk, will, after it falls, for want of nourishment, light, and air, shrink and shrivel. But even in such springs, might not an over rankness be prevented by pasturing the grain; or even mowing it, when, as it sometimes happens, it gets ahead of what cattle are put upon it. But, at the worst, the grain is not lost; for if it lodges, and is spoiled for the sickle, hogs may be turned upon it and they will thrive well.

But now comes the advantage of small grain to the soil, which will be the same whether the crop is reaped or hogged. The straw or stubble, in either case, remains upon the ground. This should not be plowed in, but burned, and the ashes plowed under. To do this a strip of eight feet should be plowed about the whole field; and fire put to it, on every side at once, so that it may burn towards the centre; for fire, driven across a field, would leap many feet of open space at a fence. The more stubble the better, and the more weeds the better. The ashes will give to the soil just what it lacks, cohesion or firmness, and moisture. For, to make a dry soil moist, requires some substance to be added, which, having an affinity for moisture, shall attract and retain it. This is the nature of wood or straw ashes. A gentleman who will recognize in the above much of his own practical experience, mentioned to us a singular fact in corroboration of this reasoning. Having a very heavy wheat or oat stubble on a bottom-land field, which made it very hard for the plow, he burned it over; but a smart thunder-storm coming suddenly up, the fire was extinguished, leaving about five acres in the middle of the piece, unburned. The whole field was then plowed. It was found that the soil in the part burned over was more firm, and moist, all the ensuing summer; and the corn more even, and darker colored, than that upon the five acres which escaped the fire, and whose stubble had been plowed in.

At all events, there can be no doubt that wood-ashes would be very advantageous to bottom lands. And we are persuaded that such soils may be kept in wheat and corn for any length of time, if thus managed. In conclusion, corn your bottom-lands till they are too light, hogging instead of harvesting them; then put in wheat or oats; leave the stubble long, burn it over, and put it into wheat again, or to corn, as the case may be.

CULTIVATION OF WHEAT.

There are two opinions which will prevent any attempt to improve the cultivation of wheat, or, indeed, of anything else. The first is the opinion that, what are called wheat-lands, yield enough at any rate: the second is the opinion of those who own a soil not naturally good for wheat, that there is no use in trying to raise much to the acre. We suppose that wheat will not average more than twelve bushels to the acre, as it is now cultivated in some parts. At that rate, and with too low prices, it is not worth cultivation for commercial purposes. The cost of seed, of labor in preparing the soil, putting in the crop, harvesting, threshing, and carrying it to market, is greater than the value of the crop. At fifty cents a bushel, and twelve bushels to the acre, the farmer gets six dollars, which certainly does not cover the worth of his time and the interest on his land.

Is it possible, then, at an expense within the means of ordinary farmers, to bring a double or treble crop of wheat? If nature has set limits to the produce of this grain to the acre, and if our farmers have come up to that limit, there is no use in their trying to do any better. But if their crop is four fold behind what it ought to be, they will feel courage to reach out for a better mode of cultivation. Vegetables collect food from the atmosphere, and from the soil; and different plants select different articles of food from the soil, just as different birds, beasts, insects, etc., require different food. One class of plants draws potash largely from the soil, as turnips, potatoes, the stalk of corn, etc. Another class requires lime, in great measure, as tobacco, pea straw, etc. Liebig partially classifies plants according to the principal food which they require; as silica plants, lime plants, potash plants, etc.

Every plant being composed of certain chemical elements, requires for its perfection a soil containing those elements. Thus chemistry has shown, by exact analysis, that good meadow hay contains the following elements: Silica (sand), lime (as a phosphate, a sulphate, and a carbonate, i. e. lime combined with phosphoric, sulphuric, and carbonic acids), potash (as a chloride, and a sulphate), magnesia, iron, and soda. Whatever soil is rich in these will be productive of grass.

The grain of wheat (in distinction from the straw) contains, and of course requires from the soil, sulphates of potash, soda, lime, magnesia, iron, etc.

Any vegetable, in its proper latitude, will flourish in a soil which will yield it an abundance of food; and decline in a soil which is barren of the proper nutritive ingredients.

A practical, scientific knowledge of these fundamental facts, will give an intelligent farmer, in grain-growing latitudes, almost unlimited power over his crops. A good cook knows what things are required for bread; he selects these materials, compounds them to definite proportions—adding, if any one is deficient; subtracting, if any one is in excess. Raising a crop is a species of slow cooking. Here is a compound of such materials (called wheat) to be made. Nature agrees to knead them together, and produce the grain, if the farmer will supply the materials. To do this he must understand what these materials are. Suppose a cook perceiving that the bread was wretched, did not know exactly what was the matter; and should add, salt, or flour, or yeast, or water at hap-hazard? Yet that is exactly what multitudes of farmers do. They find that their fields yield a small crop of wheat. They do not know what the matter is. Is the soil deficient in lime, or sand, or clay? Is magnesia or potash lacking? Perhaps they do not even know that these things are requisite to this crop. “The land must be manured.” Now, manure on an impracticable soil, is medicine. Of course if the farmer prescribes, he must tell what medicine, i. e. what manure. Is it vegetable matter or phosphates? alumina or silica? Suppose a doctor says: “You are sick and must take medicine,” without knowing what the disease is, or what the appropriate remedy; and so should pull out a handful of whatever there was in his saddle-bags and dose the wretch? That’s the way farming goes on. “The ten acre lot wants manure.” To the barn yard he goes, takes the dung heap, plows it under, and gets an enormous crop of—straw. Nitrogenous manure was not what the soil wanted. He has added materials which existed in abundance already; but those elements, from the want of which his crop suffered, have not been given it. The land is sicker than it was before. It languishes for want of one element, it suffers from a surfeit of another. We are prepared to sustain these observations by a reference to authentic facts.

Massachusetts, a few years ago, was not a wheat-growing State. Cautious farmers had given up the crop, because neither soil nor climate was supposed to favor it. How then have both soil and climate been persuaded to relent, and permit from twenty to forty bushels to grow to the acre? It was no accident, and no series of blind but lucky blunders, that effected the change. It was thinking that did it. It was a change wrought by science. Elliot (in Connecticut), Deane (both clergymen), Dexter, Lowell, Fessenden, and many others, all men of science, were pioneers. Agricultural surveys, geological surveys, and skillful chemical analyses of the soil and its products have been made for, now, a series of years. A Hitchcock, a Dana, a Jackson have applied science to agriculture. Pamphlets, books, and widely circulated newspapers have diffused this knowledge. Agricultural societies, state and county; farmers’ meetings for discussion, such as are held every winter in Boston, have awakened the mind of farmers, and by learning to treat their soils skillfully, good wheat is raised in large quantities on soils naturally very averse to wheat.

The average crop of wheat in great Britain is twenty-six bushels to the acre, but forty and fifty are common to good farmers; sixty, seventy, and even eighty have been raised by great care.

In the whole United States it will not average much more than fifteen. A comparison of the two countries will show a corresponding inferiority on our part in the application of science to agriculture. Scotland, formerly, hardly raised wheat. Since the formation of the Highland Agricultural Society in Scotland, wheat has averaged fifty-one bushels to the acre!—Ellsworth’s Report for 1844, p. 16.

Lord Hardwicke stated, in a speech before the Royal Agricultural Society of England, that fine Suffolk wheat had produced seventy-six bushels per acre; and another and improved variety had yielded eighty-two bushels per acre! This was the result of “book farming” in a country where anti-book farmers raise twenty-six bushels to the acre.

Those very operations which farmers call practical, and upon which they rely in decrying “book farming” were first made known by science, and through the writings of scientific men.

These views have an immediate and practical bearing on the cultivation of wheat in the Western States.

Hitherto the want of enough cleared land has led farmers to put in wheat among the corn, and half put it in at that. Others have plowed their fallows, or their grass lands, so early in the season, that rains and settling have made it hard again by seed-time. Then, without stirring it, the grain has been thrown (away) upon it, and half harrowed in and left to its fate. Equally bad has been the system of late single plowing. Others have given their grain no soil to bed their roots in; a scratched surface receives the grain; its roots, like the steward, cannot dig, and so get no hold; and are either winter killed, or subsist upon the scanty food of the three or four inches of top soil. With some single exceptions, wheat cannot be said to have been cultivated yet. The two great operations in rendering soil productive of wheat, are either the development of the materials already in the soil; or, the addition to the soil of properties which are wanting.

Much land yielding only twelve or fifteen bushels, by a better preparation would, just as easily, yield thirty. Let us suppose that a common plowing of four or five inches, precedes sowing. Out of this superficial soil the wheat is to draw its food. Constant cropping has, perhaps, already diminished its abundance. Then wheat is rank in stem, short in the head, and light in the kernel. But below there is a bed of materials untouched. The subsoil, if brought up, exposed to the ameliorating influence of the elements, will furnish in great abundance the elements required. The simple operation of deep and thorough plowing will, often, be enough to increase the crop one-half. Deep plowing gives a place for the roots, which will not be apt to heave out in winter; it saves the wheat from drought, it gives the nourishment of twice the quantity of soil to the crop.

Five acres may become ten by enlarging the soil downward. These remarks are desultory; and, while we intend to continue writing on the subject, we say to such as may be getting ready for the wheat-sowing, plow deeply and thoroughly; unlike corn, wheat can only be plowed once, and that at the beginning. It should be thoroughly done, then, once for all.

WHEAT LANDS ought to be so farmed as to grow better from year to year; certainly, they ought to hold their own. Lands may be kept in heart by the adoption of a rotation suited to each particular soil; or, if frequent wheat crops are raised, by fallows or manuring. It is a fact that in this neighborhood farms in the hands of careful men are yielding better crops of wheat every year; while multitudes of farmers think themselves fortunate in twelve or fifteen bushels to the acre, there is another class who expect twenty-five or thirty bushels, and in good seasons get it. This is encouraging. As our lands get older we may look for yet better things. Some farmers put in from 100 to 800, and even 1,000 acres of wheat. The native qualities of the soil are relied upon for the crop. To manure or clover such a body of land is impossible with any capital at the command of its owners. But with us, each owner of a quarter section puts in from ten to twenty acres, and it lies within his means to dress this quantity of land to a high degree.

SOILS FIT FOR WHEAT.—A vegetable mold cannot yield wheat, because it does not contain, and therefore cannot afford to the crop, silicate of potash, or phosphate of magnesia; the first of which gives strength to the stem, and the second of which is necessary to the grain. On such soil wheat may grow as a grass, but not as a grain.

A mere sand will not yield wheat; because wheat requires, and such soils do not contain, soda, magnesia, and especially silicate of potash.

All clays contain potash, which is indispensable to wheat, but they may be deficient in soda, in magnesia, and in other alkalies.

A calcareous clay-loam may be regarded as the best soil for wheat. And when it does not exist in a natural state, all the additions in the form of manure should be with reference to the formation of such a soil. If the land be light and sandy, clay, and marl, and wood ashes should be added, together with barnyard manure; if the soil is a tenacious clay, it should be warmed and mellowed by sand and manure; if it is deficient in lime, lime in substance, or in marl must be given; vegetable molds, if heavily dressed with wood-ashes and lime, may be brought to produce wheat.

TO PREPARE THE GROUND.—This operation depends upon the condition of the soil. But, in all cases, the deepest plowing is the best. The roots of wheat, if unchecked, will extend more than five feet. Stiff, tough, soils, unbroken for years, and especially if much trampled by cattle, will require strong teams. Oxen are better than horses to break up with. It has been said, that a yoke of cattle draw a plow deeper, naturally, than a span of horses. They are certainly better fitted for dull, dead, heavy pulling. And if oxen have been well trained they will do as much plowing in a season as horses, and come out of the work in better condition.

Fallow lands should be broken up early in summer, as soon as corn planting is over; about midsummer plow again; and the last time early in September to prepare for seed.

A grass or clover lay may be plowed under deeply at midsummer, and not disturbed till sowing-time; and the fall plowing should not disturb the inverted sod.