Agriculture for Beginners by Daniel Harvey Hill (ebook reader 7 inch .TXT) π
The joint action of air, moisture, and frost was still another agent of soil-making. This action is called weathering. Whenever you have noticed the outside stones of a spring-house, you have noticed that tiny bits are crumbling from the face of the stones, and adding little by little to the soil. This is a slow way of making additions to the soil. It is estimated that it would take 728,000 years to wear away limestone rock to a depth of thirty-nine inches. But when you recall the countless years through which the weather has striven against the rocks, you can readily understand that its never-wearying activity has added immensely to the soil.
In the rock soil formed in these various ways, and indeed on the rocks themselves, tiny plants that live on food taken from the air began to grow. They grew just as you now see mosses and lichens grow on the surface of rocks. The decay of these plants added some fertility to the newly formed soil. The life and death of
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1. To destroy weeds that would take plant food and water.
2. To provide a mulch of dry soil so as to prevent the evaporation of moisture. The action of this mulch has already been explained.
3. Because "tillage is manure." Constant stirring of the soil allows the air to circulate in it, provides a more effective mulch, and helps to change unavailable plant food into the form that plants use.
Fig. 201.
Deep culture of corn is not advisable. The roots in their early stages of growth are shallow feeders and spread widely only a few inches below the surface. The cultivation that destroys or disturbs the roots injures the plants and lessens the yield. We cultivate because of the three reasons given above, and not to stir the soil about the roots or to loosen it there.
In many parts of the country the cornstalks are left standing in the fields or are burned. This is a great mistake, for the stalks are worth a good deal for feeding horses, cattle, and sheep. These stalks may always be saved by the use of the husker and shredder. Corn after being matured and cut can be put in shocks and left thus until dry enough to run through the husker and shredder. This machine separates the corn from the stalk and husks it. At the same time it shreds tops, leaves, and butts into a food that is both nutritious and palatable to stock. For the amount that animals will eat, almost as much feeding value is obtained from corn stover treated in this way as from timothy hay. The practice of not using the stalks is wasteful and is fast being abandoned. The only reason that so much good food is being left to decay in the field is because so many people have not fully learned the feeding value of the stover.
EXERCISE
To show the effect of cultivation on the yield of corn, let the pupils lay off five plats in some convenient field. Each plat need consist of only two rows about twenty feet long. Treat each plat as follows:
Plat 1. No cultivation: let weeds grow.
Plat 2. Mulch with straw.
Plat 3. Shallow cultivation: not deeper than two inches and at least five times during the growing season.
Plat 4. Deep cultivation: at least four inches deep, so as to injure and tear out some of the roots (this is a common method).
Plat 5. Root-pruning: ten inches from the stalk and six inches deep, prune the roots with a long knife. Cultivate five times during the season.
Observe plats during the summer, and at husking-time note results.
SECTION XXXIX. PEANUTSThis plant is rich in names, being known locally as "ground pea," "goober," "earthnut," and "pindar," as well as generally by the name of "peanut." The peanut is a true legume, and, like other legumes, bears nitrogen-gathering tubercles upon its roots. The fruit is not a real nut but rather a kind of pea or bean, and develops from the blossom. After the fall of the blossom the "spike," or flower-stalk, pushes its way into the ground, where the nut develops. If unable to penetrate the soil the nut dies.
Fig. 202. A Peanut Plant
In the United States, North and South Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee have the most favorable climates for peanut culture. Suitable climate and soil, however, may be found from New Jersey to the Mississippi valley. A high, porous, sandy loam is the most suitable. Stiffer soils, which may in some cases yield larger crops than the loams, are yet not so profitable, for stiff soils injure the color of the nut. Lime is a necessity and must be supplied if the soil is deficient. Phosphoric acid and potash are needed.
Greater care than is usually bestowed should be given to the selection of the peanut seed. In addition to following the principles given in Section XVIII, all musty, defective seeds must be avoided and all frosted kernels must be rejected. Before it dries, the peanut seed is easily injured by frost. The slightest frost on the vines, either before or after the plants are dug, does much harm to the tender seed.
In growing peanuts, thorough preparation of the soil is much better than later cultivation. Destroy the crop of young weeds, but do not disturb the peanut crop by late cultivation. Harvest before frost, and shock high to keep the vines from the ground.
The average yield of peanuts in the United States is twenty-two bushels an acre. In Tennessee the yield is twenty-nine bushels an acre, and in North Carolina and Virginia it reaches thirty bushels an acre.
SECTION XL. SWEET POTATOESThe roots of sweet potatoes are put on the market in various forms. Aside from the form in which they are ordinarily sold, some potatoes are dried and then ground into flour, some are canned, some are used to make starch, some furnish a kind of sugar called glucose, and some are even used to make alcohol.
Fig. 203. Sweet Potatoes
The fact that there are over eighty varieties of potatoes shows the popularity of the plant. Now it is evident that all of these varieties cannot be equally desirable. Hence the wise grower will select his varieties with prudent forethought. He should study his market, his soil, and his seed (see Section XVIII).
Four months of mild weather, months free from frost and cold winds, are necessary for the growing of sweet potatoes. In a mild climate almost any loose, well-drained soil will produce them. A light, sandy loam, however, gives a cleaner potato and one, therefore, that sells better.
The sweet potato draws potash, nitrogen, and phosphoric acid from the soil, but in applying these as fertilizers the grower must study and know his own soil. If he does not he may waste both money and plant food by the addition of elements already present in sufficient quantity in the soil. The only way to come to reliable conclusions as to the needs of the soil is to try two or three different kinds of fertilizers on plats of the same soil, during the same season, and notice the resulting crop of potatoes.
Sweet potatoes will do well after almost any of the usual field crops. This caution, however, should be borne in mind. Potatoes should not follow a sod. This is because sods are often thick with cutworms, one of the serious enemies of the potato.
It is needless to say that the ground must be kept clean by thorough cultivation until the vines take full possession of the field.
In harvesting, extreme care should be used to avoid cutting and bruising the potato, since bruises are as dangerous to a sweet potato as to an apple, and render decay almost a certainty. Lay aside all bruised potatoes for immediate use.
For shipment the potatoes should be graded and packed with care. An extra outlay of fifty cents a barrel often brings a return of a dollar a barrel in the market. One fact often neglected by Southern growers who raise potatoes for a Northern market is that the Northern markets demand a potato that will cook dry and mealy, and that they will not accept the juicy, sugary potato so popular in the South.
The storage of sweet potatoes presents difficulties owing to their great tendency to decay under the influence of the ever-present fungi and bacteria. This tendency can be met by preventing bruises and by keeping the bin free from rotting potatoes. The potatoes should be cleaned, and after the moisture has been dried off they should be stored in a dry, warm place.
The sweet-potato vine makes a fair quality of hay and with proper precaution may be used for ensilage. Small, defective, unsalable potatoes are rich in sugar and starch and are therefore good stock food. Since they contain so much water they must be used only as an aid to other diet.
SECTION XLI. WHITE, OR IRISH, POTATOESMaize, or Indian corn, and potatoes are the two greatest gifts in the way of food that America has bestowed on the other nations. Since their adoption in the sixteenth century as a new food from recently discovered America, white potatoes have become one of the world's most important crops.
Fig. 204. Cultivating and Ridging Potatoes
No grower will harvest large crops of potatoes unless he chooses soil that suits the plant, selects his seed carefully, cultivates thoroughly, feeds his land sufficiently, and sprays regularly.
The soil should be free from potato scab. This disease remains in land for several years. Hence if land is known to have any form of scab in it, do not plant potatoes in such land. Select for this crop a deep and moderately light, sandy loam which has an open subsoil and which is rich in humus. The soil must be light enough for the potatoes, or tubers, to enlarge easily and dry enough to prevent rot or blight or other diseases. Potato soil should be so close-grained that it will hold moisture during a dry spell and yet so well-drained that the tubers will not be hurt by too much moisture in wet weather.
If the land selected for potatoes is lacking in humus, fine compost or well-rotted manure will greatly increase the yield. However, it should be remembered that green manure makes a good home for the growth of scab germs. Hence it is safest to apply this sort of manure in the fall, or, better still, use a heavy dressing of manure on the crop which the potatoes are to follow. Leguminous crops supply both humus and nitrogen and, at the same time, improve the subsoil. Therefore such crops are excellent to go immediately before potatoes. If land is well supplied with humus, commercial fertilizers are perhaps safer than manure, for when these fertilizers are used the amount of plant food is more easily regulated. Select a fertilizer that is rich in potash. For gardens unleached wood ashes make a valuable fertilizer because they supply potash. Early potatoes need more fertilization than do late ones. While potatoes do best on rich land, they should not be overfed, for a too heavy growth of foliage is likely to cause blight.
Be careful to select seed from sound potatoes which are entirely free from scab. Get the kinds that thrive best in the section in which they are to be planted and which suit best the markets in which they are to be sold. Seed potatoes should be kept in a cool place so that they will not sprout before planting-time. As a rule consumers prefer a smooth, regularly shaped, shallow-eyed white or flesh-colored potato which is mealy when cooked. Therefore, select seed tubers with these qualities. It seems proved that when whole potatoes are used for seed the yield is larger than when sliced potatoes are planted. It is of course too costly to plant whole potatoes, but it is a good practice to cause the plants to thrive by planting large seed pieces.
Fig. 205. Gathering Potatoes
Like other crops, potatoes need a thoroughly prepared seed-bed and intelligent cultivation. Break the land deep. Then go over it with an ordinary harrow until all clods are broken and the soil is fine and well closed. The rows should be at least three feet from one another and the seeds placed from twelve to eighteen inches apart in the row, and covered to a depth of three or four inches. A late crop should be planted deeper than an early one. Before the plants come up it is well to go over the field once or twice with a harrow so as to kill all weeds. Do not fail to save moisture by
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