“When our first parent,” he continued, “was sent forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken, he probably did not know that the means necessary to kill the thorns and thistles enhanced the productiveness of the soil, yet such was undoubtedly the case.
“The farmer for centuries was simply a ‘tiller of the ground.’ Guano, though formed, according to some eminent authorities, long ages before the creation of man, was not then known. The coprolites lay undisturbed in countless numbers in the lias, the greensand, and the Suffolk crag. Charleston phosphates were unknown. Superphosphate, sulphate of ammonia, nitrate of soda, and kainit were not dreamed of. Nothing was said about the mineral manure theory, or the exhaustion of the soil. There were no frauds in artificial fertilizers; no Experiment Stations. The earth, fresh from the hands of its Creator, needed only to be ‘tickled with a hoe to laugh with a harvest.’ Nothing was said about the value of the manure obtained from the consumption of a ton of oil-cake, or malt-combs, or bran, or clover-hay. For many centuries, the hoe, the spade, and the rake constituted Adam’s whole stock in trade.
“At length,” continued the Doctor, “a great discovery was made. A Roman farmer—probably a prominent Granger—stumbled on a mighty truth. Manuring the land—that is, hoeing and cultivating it—increased its fertility. This was well known—had been known for ages, and acted upon; but this Roman farmer, Stercutius, who was a close observer, discovered that the droppings of animals had the same effect as hoeing. No wonder these idolatrous people voted him a god. They thought there would be no more old-fashioned manuring; no more hoeing.
“Of course they were mistaken,” continued the Doctor, “our arable land will always need plowing and cultivating to kill weeds. Manure, in the sense in which we now use the term, is only a partial substitute for tillage, and tillage is only a partial substitute for manure; but it is well to bear in mind that the words mean the same thing, and the effects of both are, to a certain extent, identical. Tillage is manure, and manure is tillage.”
[ CHAPTER VIII.]
SUMMER-FALLOWING.
This is not the place to discuss the merits, or demerits, of fallowing. But an intelligent Ohio farmer writes me: —“I see that you recommend fallow plowing, what are your reasons? Granting that the immediate result is an increased crop, is not the land impoverished? Will not the thorough cultivation of corn, or potatoes, answer as well?” And a distinguished farmer, of this State, in a recent communication expressed the same idea—that summer-fallowing would soon impoverish the land. But if this is the case, the fault is not in the practice of summer-fallowing, but in growing too many grain crops, and selling them, instead of consuming them on the farm. Take two fields; summer-fallow one, and sow it to wheat. Plant the other to corn, and sow wheat after it in the fall. You get, say 35 bushels of wheat per acre from the summer-fallow. From the other field you get, say, 30 bushels of shelled corn per acre, and 10 bushels of wheat afterwards. Now, where a farmer is in the habit of selling all his wheat, and consuming all his corn on the farm, it is evident that the practice of summer-fallowing will impoverish the soil more rapidly than the system of growing corn followed by wheat—and for the simple reason that more wheat is sold from the farm. If no more grain is sold in one case than in the other, the summer-fallowing will not impoverish the soil any more than corn growing.
My idea of fallowing is this:—The soil and the atmosphere furnish, on good, well cultivated land, plant-food sufficient, say, for 15 bushels of wheat per acre, every year. It will be sometimes more, and sometimes less, according to the season and the character of the soil, but on good, strong limestone land this may be taken as about the average. To grow wheat every year in crops of 15 bushels per acre, would impoverish the soil just as much as to summer-fallow and get 30 bushels of wheat every other year. It is the same thing in either case. But in summer-fallowing, we clean the land, and the profits from a crop of 30 bushels per acre every other year, are much more than from two crops of 15 bushels every year. You know that Mr. Lawes has a field of about thirteen acres that he sows with wheat every year. On the plot that receives no manure of any kind, the crop, for twenty years, averaged 16¼ bushels per acre. It is plowed twice every year, and the wheat is hand-hoed in the spring to keep it clean. A few years ago, in a field adjoining this experimental wheat field, and that is of the same character of land, he made the following experiment. The land, after wheat, was fallowed, and then sown to wheat; then fallowed the next year, and again sown to wheat, and the next year it was sown to wheat after wheat. The following is the result compared with the yield of the continuously unmanured plot in the experimental field that is sown to wheat every year: