or as farmyard manure, at once makes that soil a suitable home for the
animal life—the fungi—and the bacteria, whose function it is to reduce
organic matter to the condition of inorganic matter. An increase of
organic plant residue or manure thus creates some of the conditions
favorable to its own destruction. The rate of oxidation in the soil is
now no longer what it was; the oxidizing agents have increased with the
material to be oxidized. If, therefore, a soil is laid down in pasture
or receives an annual dressing of farmyard manure, the nitrogen in that
soil will only increase so long as the annual increment of organic matter
exceeds the annual decrement by oxidation. If this increment is a limited
quantity it will be met before long with an army of destroyers competent
to effect its destruction. The richest soils are thus the most liable to
waste and demand the greatest exercise of the farmer’s skill to preserve
their condition. When the conditions of the soil are changed, when the
pasture is plowed up or the arable land is left without manure, there is
at first a rapid loss of nitrogen, but the rate of loss soon diminishes.
The organic matter most easily attacked has disappeared. The army of
oxidizing organisms has been reduced to starvation. A partial equilibrium
is established when the annual destruction of organic matter amounts to
little more than the annual residue of crop and weeds; but an absolute
equilibrium is reached only when the annual loss by nitrogen is equaled
by the atmospheric supply. In every case nature seeks to establish an
equilibrium.”
For the American farmer to obtain good heavy crops, and consequently,
large crop residues, there is only one way to do it. Invest some money in
ground phosphate rock, and after applying it, plant a legume—cow peas,
red clover, etc., and the investment will pay you the biggest dividend
you ever received in your life.
Alfalfa-Growing in the South
BY JOSEPH E. WING, MECHANICSBURG, OHIO.
[Illustration: JOSEPH E. WING.]
(Ed. Note—Mr. Joseph E. Wing is regarded as the best authority
in the United States on Alfalfa. He was born in 1861, took a
common school education and worked with his father on a stock
farm. Went to the Rocky Mountains when twenty-five years old,
and became a cowboy, learning the business thoroughly and
becoming manager of a large ranch. While in the West he saw
the wonderful value of the alfalfa plant growing there, and
determining to grow it in Ohio he came back to that State,
bought the old home and went to work. He enriched and drained
the old farm, laying fourteen miles of tile underdrain in
a 320-acre farm. Last season he grew on that farm 400 tons
of alfalfa hay. His two brothers, Charles and Willis, are
partners with him on the farm, and they made last year, besides
the alfalfa and other products, 50,000 pounds of lamb wool.—Ed.
Trotwood’s.)
Alfalfa will grow as well in the South, under right conditions, as it
will in any country in the world without irrigation. Alfalfa sown in
the South under wrong conditions will prove a discouraging failure.
So, therefore, it is far from any desire of mine to encourage unwise
experimentation or lead men to make unavailing efforts to grow alfalfa
upon unfit soils or with wrong methods.
Let us consider the few essential things that alfalfa demands. First, a
soil that is not sour.
Next, a soil that is well enough drained so that water does not saturate
it at any time of the year, unless for a day or two following very heavy
rainfalls.
Then a soil that is rich in the mineral elements that go to make plants
grow, phosphorus and potash, and well supplied, too, with nitrogen.
And, to crown all, a soil supplied with abundant vegetable matter or
“humus.”
Given these things, and the South’s sun and skies, alfalfa will grow in
most any part of the South and will yield annually four or five cuttings
a year of the richest forage either to feed green, or to cure into hay.
An acre of proper soil devoted to alfalfa will produce double the total
amount of available food for animals that an acre of corn will, and of
a higher class of nutrients. That is because the alfalfa is so rich in
protein, the muscle and blood-building elements that are so much needed
in a ration for all young animals, for dairy cows or any animals giving
milk to their young.
To prepare an acre of land for alfalfa may in some instances involve
considerable labor and expense. If the work is rightly done it will be
lavishly repaid by the grateful alfalfa plants, and after they have grown
upon the soil for a series of years they will leave it richer than they
found it.
If each farm in the South will grow alfalfa, even if no more than two
or three acres, it will enormously increase its prosperity and wealth.
There are sections of the South where easily there may be developed large
alfalfa fields. There are other sections where to grow alfalfa will
require thought, effort, expense and care. Success when reached will
richly reward all this effort.
It is most unwise to sow alfalfa seed upon unfertile soils or without
right preparation of the soil and attention to a few important details.
Nevertheless, the few things needful, are of easy attainment, for there
is no mystery about alfalfa growing.
Let us take up the essentials of alfalfa growing: first, that the soil
must be sweet.
It is a new thought to Southern farmers, perhaps, that soils are some
times sour. They may be sour upon limestone land, but are more apt to be
sour away from the lime.
If they are water-logged during part of the year, they are most apt to
be sour. This acidity comes probably from the decay within the soil of
vegetable matter, though some soils very deficient in humus are acid.
An evidence of acidity is seen when clovers fail to thrive, and certain
weeds appear in the meadows.
The appearance of “sorrel,” the little red-topped weed that is seen in
so many meadows of recent years, is an indication of acidity. A surer
indication is the gradual disappearance of red clover and the difficulty
experienced in making it grow.
Lime is the cure of acid soils, though drainage is often needed along
with lime. It may be applied to a freshly-plowed surface at the rate of
from one to two tons per acre of air slaked or ground lime, and in some
countries ground limestone is used with good results.
Lime is not itself a fertilizer, but it makes the land sweet so that
clovers may grow and by their presence bring about enrichment of the soil.
Alfalfa is a clover, one of the best, since it is of very long life and
surprising vigor upon proper soil.
The South needs the use of thousands of tons of lime, in connection with
manures. Liming poor soils without manuring may not bring much benefit
since there may be too little plant food even when the soil is sweetened.
The older regions of the world, where advanced agriculture has been
practiced for centuries, use great amounts of lime. The writer has seen
great chalk pits in England whence had been taken thousands of tons of
chalk (a soft limestone) to enrich the adjoining farms.
In some parts of the South, however, where red clover thrives, the land
has in it enough lime, and is in no need of sweetening. We will then
consider the next requirement—drainage.
Alfalfa grows through the aid of little bacteria that inhabit its
rootlets. These bacteria must have air. Therefore the flooding of the
earth by complete saturation of water destroys the life of the bacteria
and of the alfalfa itself.
If a post-hole dug three feet deep in the field where it is desired to
sow alfalfa shows water standing in it for more than a few days in the
year, that soil needs under-draining before being sown to alfalfa.
In general, the depth to the water level should be about forty feet. If
there is a greater depth it is generally better.
Now, we will consider the matter of fertility. Alfalfa feeds deep in the
soil after it gets established and it secures a part of its nitrogen
through the aid of the bacteria from the air.
Nevertheless, it is a gross feeder upon phosphorus and potash and cannot
secure these from the air. Nor will it at first secure all its needed
nitrogen from the air.
Therefore, land destined to be sown to alfalfa should be rich when sown.
If it is not rich it should be made rich before seed is consigned to it.
Next, comes the need of humus in the soil. Now “humus” is simply decayed
vegetable matter, and is best supplied through turning under vegetable
growths such as cowpeas, or through the use of stable manures. Humus in
the soil does several very needed things.
First, it supplies a direct plant food through the nitrogen, phosphorus
and potash that it contains, being especially rich in nitrogen.
Next, in decaying it forms compounds that attack the locked-up mineral
elements of the soil and sets them free to be absorbed by the plants.
Then it absorbs moisture and makes the soil more slow in drying, besides
preventing the close packing that comes with puddling in clay soils
deficient in humus.
And as important as anything, perhaps most important of all, it puts
“life” into the soil. Soils with humus in them are really alive, for the
decaying vegetable matter attracts bacteria of many sorts that in their
life and death and decay form many compounds that the plants can absorb
and thus directly increase fertility and make plants grow.
Good soils are truly “live” soils, filled with legions of microscopic
forms of life, most of it beneficial to the higher orders of growing
plants useful to men.
Poor soils, deficient in humus, cold, puddled clays, are literally “dead”
soils and speak sadly of a dying civilization and decaying people.
Alfalfa, then, revels in a deep, rich, sweet soil. How are we to provide
it in the South?
First, there are many river bottoms that are admirably adapted to
alfalfa, being made up of rich alluvial loams, pervious to air and
moisture, and not holding a surplus of moisture. On these soils alfalfa
usually thrives splendidly.
Next, there are new lands freshly cleared where robber crops have not yet
had time to take out the fertility. Often these newer soils will respond
wonderfully with alfalfa. Some very steep mountain sides are growing
alfalfa finely when sown on freshly-cleared surfaces.
Some lands are naturally fertile enough so that they will, with little
aid, grow alfalfa very well. Nevertheless, even the best of the old
cleared parts need manure before being sown to alfalfa.
We had best admit at the outset that most of the old fields of the South
need enrichment to make them produce good alfalfa. And the best way to
enrich them is with liberal coatings of stable manures.
Few farmers are aware of the great value of manures. They enrich far in
excess of the actual potash phosphorus and nitrogen carried.
Liberal dressings, then, of barnyard manure, applied before it has
leached in rain, is the best preparation for alfalfa sowing.
If one has not enough manure to prepare the soil for ten acres let him
attempt to sow but five. If he can’t manure five let him content himself
with two. Two acres of vigorous alfalfa will yield as much as ten acres
of sickly, thin stuff on unprepared soil.
And the two acres will make forage enough to make a further supply of
manure, so that he can next season enrich added acres and sow them to
alfalfa. But while stable manure is the best thing and really almost
indispensable to success in growing alfalfa upon old Southern fields, it
can be greatly helped by being re-enforced by mineral fertilizers.
“Floats,” or finely-ground phosphatic rock not treated with sulphuric
acid, is a very cheap supply of phosphorus. This phosphorus is not
available when applied to some soils deficient in humus.
But when floats are mixed with stable manure in some way the phosphorus
is made available and the plants can get it. Therefore, the wise farmer
sprinkles his stables with floats which absorb the ammonia and makes the
stable smell sweet, and when the manure is applied its value has been
almost doubled. Stable manure fortified with floats is the thing to apply
to the soil to make alfalfa grow.
This manure may be applied to a preceding crop of corn or tobacco, if it
is applied heavily enough so that there is a large residue left.
Or it may be applied directly before the ground is plowed for alfalfa.
This is a safe way. It may be turned under or harrowed in or disked in or
left to lie on the surface through the winter and the land plowed in the
early spring.
Just get it over the land in any way and as soon as convenient after it
is made; it will do the work.
Apply as much as twenty-five tons to the acre and more if you have it.
This will be a help, but in strong Southern clays there is no need to
fear putting on an abundance; it will not leach away, and the more
humus you get in that soil the better your alfalfa will be. Do not be
discouraged by this information; you can afford to use the manure to
start a crop that maintains itself and makes such a large amount of
forage that will, if fed and the manure saved, in turn enrich yet other
fields for many years.
Late in winter or early in spring the land may be plowed. It should
be broken deep and as soon as the land is ready to work, it should be
harrowed to a good seed bed.
Alfalfa wants a firm seed bed, so that the little rootlets find an
unbroken way down into the moist earth beneath.
At a little later than time for sowing oats, say the last week in March,
after danger of hard freezing is over, sow the seed. A peck of alfalfa
seed, fifteen pounds, is enough to the acre; more is waste. There are in
a bushel 14,448,000 individual alfalfa seeds. To sow fifteen pounds per
acre would put on eighty-three seeds to the square foot. Twelve plants to
the square foot are all that will grow to maturity.
The seed may be sown broadcast and harrowed in. It may be sown broadcast
and covered by drilling in after it a bushel to the acre of spring
barley, an excellent nurse crop. The beardless barley is the best. Or a
half bushel of oats sown on an acre will serve as a nurse crop, only that
in this case the oats must be cut for hay as soon as bloom appears and
before they lodge.
The land after seeding must be left smooth so that the mower may be run
over it close to the ground.
There may be sown fertilizer with the alfalfa to help the manure and it
will probably be well repaid.
After the alfalfa is sown, if the land is very dry and cloddy it should
be rolled. If it is moist, a plank drag should make it smooth and level.
At the time of sowing, if some earth from an old alfalfa field can be
had, it is well to make it fine and sow it over the field at the rate of
about 100 pounds to the acre, or soil on which sweet clover (mellilotus)
has grown. The object of this is to transfer some of the bacteria that
thrive on alfalfa roots to the new field. It is as the housewife puts
yeast in her bread.
However, if the manure has been put into the soil and it is not sour, the
seed itself will carry enough bacteria to shortly innoculate the field.
These bacteria increase very rapidly in soils filled with humus.
A good test of whether a field will grow alfalfa or not is to observe
whether it contains earthworms (fish worms). If it does not the condition
is wrong for alfalfa culture.
After this sowing nothing should be done to the field until the barley is
ripe or the oats in bloom. It may then be cut close to the ground. This
close cutting is good for the young alfalfa, which needs clipping at this
time.
Set the binder then to cut as close as possible, and if it must be cut
high for any reason follow at once with the mower and clip the stubble
close. Then let the alfalfa alone to make a second growth. If there
should come rain it will grow rapidly for about forty-five days or a
little longer. After that it may turn yellow and cease to grow.
That means that rust has struck it. Leaf rust is the pest of alfalfa in
all Eastern States. The remedy for rust is mowing off the stems as close
to the ground as practicable.
If there is enough hay to be worth saving rake it off and cure it.
If weeds are the main growth, allow them to lie and mulch the land,
supposing them not to be thick enough to smother it.
When winter sets in have a growth a foot high standing to protect the
crowns and hold the snow. Do not ever pasture alfalfa the first season.
Do not ever allow stock to tramp over it in cold weather, nor drive
across it with wagons.
Oftentimes the fall is a good time to sow alfalfa in the South. When
there is enough moisture in the land to start it well in August or
September it may succeed well, sown alone. The manner would be to plow a
wheat stubble as soon as possible after harvest, applying a light coat of
manure, and immediately working it down to a good seed bed, using every
care to prevent its drying out.
The way to do this is to have a harrow and roller in the field when the
breaking is done. Let the plows run a quarter of a day and finish out
that half day by rolling and harrowing the ground to bring it to a degree
of fineness that will enable it to hold moisture.
No nurse crop is needed when alfalfa is sown in the fall; it must be
about an inch deep and should not be sown when there is merely a little
moisture in the ground with dry soil beneath, lest it sprout and perish
before rains come.
Weeds will not trouble this fall-sown alfalfa much and it makes four
crops of hay the next year, though not quite so heavy crops as the
spring-sown alfalfa should make.
The time to make alfalfa hay is when it is about half in bloom and before
the leaves have fallen from the stem. That will be about the tenth of
May. Take this first crop off promptly to secure the hay while it is in
its prime and to allow the next crop to come on.
Cure the hay by raking into small windrows while it is yet tough and
cocking in rather tall and slender cocks so that the air may get at the
hay. Do not delay raking until the hay is dry or you will lose many of
the leaves, and they are worth as much, pound for pound, as wheat bran.
The hay may cure in the cocks if the weather is fine, or they may be
opened out and sunned and again piled up and hauled to the barn. When
only a few tons are put together the hay must be pretty dry else it may
mould. When putting many tons in one rick or mow the hay need not be so
well dried, as the heat prevents moulding.
Alfalfa hay will keep well in mow or rick, but when ricked it must be
covered with wild grass, straw or boards, as it will not shed rain well.
There will be four cuttings the second year, and these should be taken
off when the proper stage of growth has been reached, whether the alfalfa
is long or short. When it begins to bloom, the leaves to rust, and buds
appear on the bases of the stems, it must be cut, else it will cease to
grow and no subsequent crop need be looked for.
If, perchance from drought, the second or third crop happens to be very
short, it must be mown off as promptly as though it was a good growth and
then the succeeding crop, should there be rain, may be very much heavier
than the poor one removed. Had it not been cut, however, this good crop
would not have been secured.
On land rightly prepared, with favorable seasons of sufficient rain,
alfalfa in the South may yield as much as six or eight tons to the acre.
A yield of four to five tons may more confidently be expected.
Alfalfa will endure in profitable condition on suitable soils for from
six to twelve years. Grasses encroach upon it and may be destroyed by
disking after the roots are tough enough to endure it. A spike-toothed
harrow to follow the disk will more surely tear out the grass. The harrow
will not injure the alfalfa roots.
When once well established an annual drilling in of liberal amounts of
phosphorus and potash will greatly stimulate growth on most soils and be
repaid several times over in the increased yield.
When it is desired to plow the field it may be turned with a very sharp
plow and strong team and the roots are readily killed when cut off. Any
crop will yield very abundantly after alfalfa, corn and tobacco being
perhaps best suited to follow alfalfa, since small grain may lodge
because of the exceeding richness of the land.
After one or two crops have been taken off of the land it should again be
manured and sown to alfalfa, which will take much more readily and yield
much more abundantly than it did the first sowing.
In conclusion I ask the farmers of the South not to sow alfalfa upon
poor or unprepared soil or in a wrong manner, since by so doing, failure
is almost assured and the whole cause of alfalfa culture will receive
a serious setback. I believe, however, that wherever a man has learned
to grow alfalfa he will rejoice all his days and be the richer, more
intelligent and better man for it and his neighborhood will be helped by
the example of good farming.
How Old Wash Died
BY JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE.
I had not seen the old man for several months, but I supposed he was
still prospering on his little farm, when he walked in the other day
without knocking, took his seat by the fire, and casually remarked that
March was always a bad month on rheumatism.
“Why, how are you, old man?” I said, laying down my pen and seeing him
for the first time. “I haven’t seen you for several months.”
“No, I don’t reck’n you is,” he said quietly, “an’ de reason is, I ain’t
seed myself—I’ve been dead!”
“What!” I exclaimed—“dead—are you joking?”
I looked at him closely, but I saw no evidence of insanity—nothing to
indicate that he had yet reached his dotage. However, I thought it best
to pass him something for his rheumatism. He quaffed it off so naturally
that I knew he was all right and would tell it in his own way.
“Ennything happened ter speak of sense I be’n dead?” he asked,
indifferently enough, as he smacked his lips and wiped them on the back
of his hand.
I was anxious to hear how he had died, but I knew any eagerness on my
part would spoil it all, so I replied:
“Why, no, old man—nothing new. But you have heard of Jupiter Pluvius,
perhaps, and his home above the clouds. Well, he has kept busy this
spring with his watering pot.”
“Heard of ’im?” asked the old man, with a show of wrath—“why, I knowed
’im—he was a blue-gum nigger—that Jupiter was—that c’u’d pick five
hundred pounds o’ cotton in a day, an’ he run off wid my secon’ wife an’
jined de Yankees. But he didn’t lib whar you placed de rickerlicshun ob
his cohabitashun—he libbed up on Bear Creek. No, I got no hard feelin’s
about it—for, onbeknownst to hisse’f he done me a great favor. No, I
ain’t got nothin’ ag’in’ him, nur de Yankees, nur’r.”
“I guess not,” I said, “for since the Spanish war we are all Yankees now.”
“All Yankees now? Jes’ lemme tell you, sonny, dah’s one dat ain’t. No,
suh, I am a S’uthern gemman, an’ I still b’leeves de nigger was made to
belong to somebody dat ’uld feed ’im an’ mek ’im beehave. All Yankees
now? Boss, I sho’ am ’shamed of you! De naixt thing you’ll hab us all
Jews or Japs. Wal, dat’s all right, but I b’leeves I told you ’bout
co’rtin’ dat ’ar widder—”
“You got her, didn’t you?”
“Boss, did you urver kno’ ennybody to go after a widder an’ not get her?
I’ve got jes’ one rule fur co’rtin’—set up close, agree on all p’ints,
an’ dat’ll fetch on love. Never ’spute wid a widder, ’specially ef you’re
c’ortin’ her. Wait twell you’re marri’d an’ den bu’st a wash-bo’rd over
her haid ef she don’t beehave.
“Did you urver notice, boss, how cu-is a widder is about dat ur c’ortin’
bus’ness? So diff’unt frum a gal. Now, when you co’rt a gal, she ain’t
gwine say nuffin’ fur a long time. She let you co’rt her an’ co’rt her,
an’ sum day, when she fin’ she lubs you, she’ll jes’ thro’ her arms
aroun’ you’ neck an’ say, ‘Darlint, I am your’n—take me!’
“But wid a widder, nobody ain’t nurver got one of ’em to say ‘yes’
yit—but dey manage to git dar all de same.
“An’ dat wus de way wid dis heah widder I co’rted. De fus’ night I went
to see her she ’lowed she hated de very groun’ I walked on, yet she
lemme hol’ her han’ all de time. De nex’ night I was wuss’n p’lzen, yet
she lemme squeeze her. De third time I was meaner ’n dog-fennel, yet I
was good enuff to hug her. De nex’ time I cum she ’lowed I wus de mos’
contempt’us, po’ ignoble, bandy-legged has-been dat ever was, an’ stell I
sho’ did kiss her. De las’ night she fix me—I didn’t think she’d hab me
to save my life, an’ like a fool I begged her wuss’n a little weaned calf
beggin’ fur milk. Dat wus jes’ whut she was layin’ fur, an’ so, entirely
onbeknownst to me, she had de preacher wid de license dar hid in de
closet, an’ I sw’ar ter goodness, boss, befo’ de cock crow twice dat ’ar
’oman had marri’d me thrice!
“An’ den I died,” he added solemnly. “Yes, boss, I died dead, too. You
see, it all happen’ at de weddin’ supper. You see, boss, de ole man had
allers been used ter drinkin’ sho’ nuff licker, but dat night dey dose me
up wid a konkoction of pine-top, asserfederty an’ buzzard’s bre’f, an’
fo’ I knowed it I wus dead. Why, boss, dey burried me on de fus’ Sat’d’y
arter de secon’ Sunday in January, an’ I didn’t rise ergin ’twell de
Chusday arter de secon’ Sunday in March, an’ ef dat whiskey hadn’t er bin
es good in its raisin’ grace as ’twas in its fallin’ grace, I’d er bin
dar yit.”
“Would you like to kno’ what a man sees, an’ how he feels arter he’s
dead, boss?”
Would I? I gave the old man another dose of the heaven-brewed to help him
along.