Thursday, July 23, 1908.
THE PROGRESSIVE FARM
9
The Truth About Subsoiling, Deep Plowing and Scrubs
Messrs. Editors: The article by Professor Wel
born published in The Progressive' Farmer was
full of discouraging and disquieting news. I
think your reply in regard to "scrubs", covered
the ground. But how about deep plowing and
sub-soiling? Is the one-horse farmer who merely
scratches the soil right after all? Then it is not
true that "under this farm lies another"? Here
we are advised by Professor Massey "and many
other agricultural men to go into the expensive
operations of sub-soiling or deep plowing, and
now comes a man who says such work does not
pay. It seems to me "the powers that, be'.' had bet
ter get together and give the same kind of ad
vice; no one has a right to advise expensive farm
procedures unless it is certain the results will
pay. If I can do my farming just as well with less
horse-power, I want to know the fact at once. -
DR. M. A. CROCKETT.
Bedford Co., Va..
, simply by making a deep bed for the water ;wo or three eyes. Plant in deep furrows,
The farmer on the red Piedmont hills may
rest assured that he will make no blunder by sub
soiling his land deeply. There are plenty of
lands all over the country on which it would be
a waste of time and labor to sub-soil, flat heavy
lands that need drainage more than anything
else, and deep sands will not .be helped by sub
soiling. But that sub-soiling is a blunder on the
rolling uplands of the South I know is not true.
This is no theory with me, but the result of prac
tical' work with big plows and sub-soilers.
While on level lands deep sub-soiling may not
show any important improvement in the crops;
their improvement will be manifest on the steep
red hills, because there, is a place formed for the
rains to settle into instead of running off down
the hills and carrying the soil with them.. If the
red hills of the South had been kept deeply brok
en and thoroughly farmed instead of, being
scratched over, the hideous gullies would be a
rare sight and galls would be unknown. The man
who tells the farmers that sub-soiling and deep
plowing are always blunders, does not know what
he is talking about, and is merely pandering to
the prejudices of the farmers.
. I have worked the steepest of old red hills, and
have cured old gullies while never making a ter
race
to ink into and making no furrows around the
hill to catch a head of water. I 'can show to-day-old
gullies sodded with grass; out of which I kept
the water by making a deep, loose bed for it on
either side of the gully, and on such steep old
hills where the grass had run out to nothing but
poverty grass, I got clover and timothy that. were
the wonder of the neighborhood, and no four-inch
plowing would have done anything of the sort on
that land.
I was last winter among farmers who habitual
ly plow eight inches deep. They have gotten
there from long experience on their soil, and
while in many lands there is no need for deep
plowing, this fact does not contradict the fact that
in most rolling lands of a clay o loamy nature
deep plowing, and often sub-soiling, is a necessity.
Talk to a farmer on the splendid lands of Berks,
Lancaster, and York Counties in Pennsylvania
about plowing three and a half inches deep, and
f he will quickly tell you that his crops could not
be well grown as they are by any such plowing.
& -. : ,'
In the hilly lands of Central North Carolina,
about Raleigh, for instance,, the surface soil is
sandy and full of quartz particles, and right un
der it the clay is as tough as ever formed any
where, and clay that has greater stores of plant
food than the surface has, a clay so tough that I
have had alfalfa roots strike it and go off hori
zontally. Scratch that sandy surface three and a
half inches deep, and the next flood of rain will
take if off and a red gall appears. The proper
treatment of the soil cannot be covered by any
broad statement that sub-soiling is a blunder. I
have tested it for years, and know whereof I
write, and I have always uniformly told farmers
n level, compact soils and on sandy sorls that
" sub-soiling was needless with them, but that fair
ly deep plowing up to eight inches will enable
their crops even on the flat heavy soils, to stand
the droughts mn p.h hotter, if the cultivation is
level and shallow after the deep breaking, and
that on deep, sandy soils the formation of a sort
of hard pan below the plow-point is an advantage
in preventing rapid leaching.
No Experiment Station that I have ever read
after has found sub-soiling on steep lands any
thing but a benefit. The instances reported are
all on deep level and mellow soils, for even the
red soil of the Georgia Station is not steep. Any
man cultivating hills so steep that team plowman
and plow sometimes slip down hill, will under
stand the importance of deep breaking and sub
soiling. It may be needless in Texas, but in all
the rolling red hills of the Southern uplands it is
of vital importance if one wants to keep his soil
and keep the moisture there instead of running
away from him and having his crops parched in
the shallow plowed soil in dry weather. Improve
ments in agriculture do not go backward, and
deep plowing on red clay hills will become more
and more common, and the crops better thereby
because of the' retention of the moisture. Level
planting and shallow and level cultivation will,
ere long, become the rule with the cotton farmers
who plow deeply.
While on the matter of Professqr Welborn's
article, I will add a word about shredders and
scrubs. Shredding machines may be rusting In
some places, as all farm machinery is let rust by
some people. Farmers should use the cottonseed
hulls they exchange their seed for with, the meal, .
but the shredder will' give them far more feed
and enable them to feed far more stock, and use
their corn stover to the best advantage.
Scrub cattle, it is well known, will gain weight
as fast when well fed as the best pure bloods and
grades, but did Professor Welborn ever see one
top the market? No matter how much the scrub
animal has gained, his gain will be mainly of tal
low on the inside, and not the broad juicy loins
that make the well-bred beef animals more val
uable. I saw once at Chicago a lot of scrub cattle
that had been fed at the Missouri Station. They
were very fat indeed, but they did not bring the
price that similarly fat animals did simply be
cause they had not made the valuable cuts that
the packers wanted, and could not be sold to the
butchers who cater to -a high-class trade for sir
loin and porter-house steaks.
If the stations are to help the advance in agri
cultural improvement they must lead the way,
not by general statements, but by a study of con
ditions, for advice given to one man will be total
ly erroneous when given to another working un
der different conditions. W. F. MASSEY.
Practical Farm Questions Answered.
To make room for" more answers the questions
are often omitted in this department. You may
find your question answered here even before you
ask it, and two or three questions by different
people are often answered under one head.
RAISING SECOND CROP POTATOES.
In ycmr section (3f. the State (Granville County)
it would be better to prepare the land at once for
the potatoes, and to get the cold storage seed
from Richmond, .for your early, crop' seed would
hardly sprout before the middle of August, and
while you might raise some seed potatoes you
would have no crop fit for the table. But by
planting the second crop seed of last year that
have been kept in cold storage, you should be able
to grow, a good : table crop.
Cut the potatoes in . good sized pieces with
made by going twice in the row with a . turning
plow,.but coyer rather lightly at first, and as the
green shoots appear work the soil to the plants
tili level, and then cultivate the crop shallow and
level. No hilling should be done if the soil has
been deeply prepared and the potatoes planted
deeply, for the object at this late season is to
conserve the moisture in the soil by keeping a
dust blanket on top and never allowing a crust to
remain,- and never turning up the moist soil be
low to dry out. Hilling is all right for the early
crop when we want the sun to warm through : the
ridges, but it is all, wrong for the late crop. Jt
the surface is kept constantly stirred a couple. of
inches you will find, moist soil just below in the
dryest weather, and if a ridge of that is deeply
turned up you will at once lose, the moisture - in
the air. . .V . -V
,4T
TOO FAR .WEST FOR BERMUDA TRY OTHER
Bermuda is doubtless one of theTbest summer
pastures we can: hJaveV, and- the yeriy best in some
sections, but I do not tntnk'it the best for Cleve
land County, N. C. If you will thoroughly break
that land and prepare tb,e seed-bed in fine order
you can get a permanent pasture that will be good
in summer and largely in winter and early spring
before Bermuda makes any show at all. You are
too far west and elevated for Bermuda to do its
best. Work in a good dressing, say 300 pounds
or more per acre of a good complete fertilizer
mixture, and sow a mixture of grasses, using
plenty of seed, for failure is more common from
lack of seed than almost anything else. I would
sow eaf ly in November ten pounds of Orohard
grass seed, five pounds of perennial rye grass, 'five
pounds of red-top, and after sowing these, scat
ter five pounds of white clover seed, which you
cannot weibkeep mixed with the lighter grass
seed. SovSrall these per acre, and I think you
will get a sod. Then If you think you still want
some Bermuda, you can get it better from seed
sown in the spring. In fact, either from seed or
roots, Bermuda must be planted in spring as it is
a hot weather grass, and fall sowing will not do,
as it is entirely dormant in winter. But I would
leave the Bermuda out, in your section.
CRIMSON CLOVER IN THE MOUNTAIN SEC
TION. In your section of the State (Burke County)
sowing crimson clover seed at last working of the
corn is not too early. But plenty of seed should "
be used, say fifteen pounds of clean seed per acre, .
and the sowing should be done immediately after
the last cultivation while the soil is fresh, so that
the next rain will cover it. This rarely ever fails -here
in Maryland in a warmer section and hotter
sandy soil than you have, for down here near the
coast in Southern Maryland the climate corre
sponds more nearly to that of Eastern North Caro
lina than to yours. In your elevated section I
would never sow crimson clover later than Au
gust, while on the eastern coast plain It may be
sown from ' September to November in the warm
er parts. In. fact, I once had a stand in Raleigh
sown November 1st, the weather in September
and October being too dry to sow. But in your
part of the State, I would not hesitateto sow in
July and August.
WILL ALFALFA AND CHUFAS GROW IN THE
MOUNTAINS?
Alfalfa seed is sold by most of-the seedsmen
advertising in The Progressive Farmer. It must
pbe sown on well-drained high land, and it is of
no use to attempt to grow it on poor land. To
get a good stand you should sow in August twen-
'ty-five pounds of the seed per acre. Do not at
tempt to grow in wet bottom land, but on light
and well-drained second bottoms in your section
it ought to do well. Its first growth is feeble,
and if sown in spring, it is apt to be smothered
out by the crab grass, but sown in late summer
it will do well if the land'is rich and is inoculated
with the bacteria that live on alfalfa roots. You
should scatter about one hundred pounds per acre
of soil from a field where alfalfa has succeeded.
There is an abundance of inoculated soil around
Hillsboro, in Orange County, and probably Col.
J. S. Carr, of Durham, will supply It from his
farm at Hiilsboro, where,, he has been growing it
for years. The price of the seed varies, and you
can get it on application to any leading seedsman.
I have seen it doing very well in. orchards, and Jf
the alfalfa is top-dressed annually, it will not se
riously injure the trees. But It will do better on
land that is devoted to it entirely, and once get
a- good stand, you can cut it a number of times
every summer If you keep up the fertility of the
land. Chufas may do in the cove land, but they
are better adapted to the sandy soils of the coast
region. The seedsmen in Augusta, Ga., are about
as near you as any. Alfalfa ought to do finely in
Macon County. '
W. F. MASSEY.
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