What I know of farming Part 4

Most men, thus empowered, would at first irrigate too often and too copiously; but experience would soon temper their zeal, and teach them

"The precious art of Not too much;"

and they would thenceforth be careful to give their soil drink yet, not drown it.

Whoever lives beyond the close of this century, and shall then traverse our prairie States, will see them whitened at intervals by the broad sails of windmills erected over wells, whence every gale or breeze will be employed in pumping water into the ponds or reservoirs so located that water may be drawn therefrom at will and diffused in gentle streamlets over the surrounding fields to invigorate and impel their growing crops. And, when all has been done that this paper faintly foreshadows, our people will have barely indicated, not by any means exhausted, the beneficent possibilities of irrigation.

The difficulty is in making a beginning. Too many farmers would fain conceal a poverty of thought behind an affectation of dislike or contempt for novelties. "Humbug!" is their stereotyped comment on every suggestion that they might wisely and profitably do something otherwise than as their grandfathers did. They a.s.sume that those respected ancestors did very well without Irrigation; wherefore, it cannot now be essential. But the circ.u.mstances have materially changed. The disappearance of the dense, high woods that formerly almost or quite surrounded each farm has given a sweep to the heated, parching winds of Summer, to which our ancestors were strangers. Our springs, our streams, do not hold out as they once did. Our Summer drouths are longer and fiercer. Even though our grandfathers did not, we _do_ need and may profit by Irrigation.

XIV.

PLOWING--DEEP OR SHALLOW.

Rules absolutely without exception are rare; and they who imagine that I insist on plowing all lands deeply are wrong for I hold that much land should never be plowed at all. In fact, I have seen in my life nearly as large an area that ought not as I have that ought to be plowed, by which I mean that half the land I have seen may serve mankind better if devoted to timber than if subjected to tillage. I personally know farmers who would thrive far better if they tilled but half the area they do, bestowing on this all the labor and fertilizers they spread over the whole, even though they threw the residue into common and left it there. I judge that a majority of our farmers could increase the recompense of their toil by cultivating fewer acres than they now do.

Nor do I deny that there are soils which it is not advisable to plow deeply. Prof. Mapes told me he had seen a tract in West Jersey whereof the soil was but eight inches deep, resting on a stratum of copperas (sulphate of iron,) which, being upturned by the plow and mingled with the soil, poisoned the crops planted thereon. And I saw, last Summer, on the intervale of New River, in the western part of Old Virginia, many acres of Corn which were thrifty and luxuriant in spite of shallow plowing and intense drouth, because the rich, black loam which had there been deposited by semi-annual inundations, until its depth ranged from two to twenty feet, was so inviting and permeable that the corn-roots ran _below_ the bottom of the furrow about as readily as above that line. I do not doubt that there are many millions of acres of such land that would produce tolerably, and sometimes bounteously, though simply scratched over by a brush harrow and never plowed at all. In the infancy of our race, when there were few mouths to fill and when farming implements were very rude and ineffective, cultivation was all but confined to these facile strips and patches, so that the utility, the need, of deep tillage was not apparent. And yet, we know the crops often failed utterly in those days, plunging whole nations into the miseries of famine.

The primitive plow was a forked stick or tree-top, whereof one p.r.o.ng formed the coulter, the other and longer the beam; and he who first sharpened the coulter-p.r.o.ng with a stone hatchet was the Whitney or McCormick of his day. The plow in common use to-day in Spain or Turkey is an improvement on this, for it has an iron point; still, it is a miserable tool. When, at five years old, I first rode the horse which drew my father's plow in furrowing for or cultivating his corn, it had an iron coulter and an iron share; but it was mainly composed of wood.

In the hard, rocky soil of New-Hampshire, as full of bowlders and pebbles as a Christmas pudding is of plums, plowing with such an implement was a sorry business at best. My father hitched eight oxen and a horse to his plow when he broke up pebbly green-sward, and found an acre of it a very long day's work. I hardly need add that subsoiling was out of the question, and that six inches was the average depth of his furrow.

I judge that the best Steel Plows now in use do twice the execution that his did with a like expenditure of power--that we can, with equal power, plow twelve inches as easily and rapidly as he plowed six. Ought we to do it? Will it pay?

I first farmed for myself in 1845 on a plat of eight acres, in what was then the open country skirting the East River nearly abreast the lower point of Blackwell's Island, near Fiftieth-st., on a little indentation of the sh.o.r.e known as Turtle Bay. None of the Avenues east of Third was then opened above Thirtieth-st.; and the neighborhood, though now perforated by streets and covered with houses, was as rural and secluded as heart could wish. One fine Spring morning, a neighbor called and offered to plow for $5 my acre of tillage not cut up by rows of box and other shrubs; and I told him to go ahead. I came home next evening, just as he was finishing the job, which I contemplated most ruefully. His plow was a pocket edition; his team a single horse; his furrows at most five inches deep. I paid him, but told him plainly that I would have preferred to give the money for nothing. He insisted that he had plowed for me as he plowed for others all around me. "I will tell you," I rejoined, "exactly how this will work. Throughout the Spring and early Summer, we shall have frequent rains and moderate heat: thus far, my crops will do well. But then will come hot weeks, with little or no rain; and they will dry up this shallow soil and every thing planted thereon."

The result signally justified my prediction. We had frequent rains and cloudy, mild weather, till the 1st of July, when the clouds vanished, the sun came out intensely hot, and we had scarcely a sprinkle till the 1st of September, by which time my Corn and Potatoes had about given up the ghost. Like the seed which fell on stony ground in the Parable of the Sower, that which I had planted had withered away "because there was no root;" and my prospect for a harvest was utterly blighted, where, with twelve inches of loose, fertile, well pulverized earth at their roots, my crops would have been at least respectable. When I became once more a farmer in a small way on my present place, I had not forgotten the lesson, and I tried to have plowed deeply and thoroughly so much land as I had plowed at all. My first Summer here (1853) was a very dry one, and crops failed in consequence around me and all over the country; yet mine were at least fair; and I was largely indebted for them to relatively deep plowing. I have since suffered from frost (on my low land), from the rotting of seed in the ground, from the ravages of insects, etc.; but never by drouth; and I am entirely confident that Deep Plowing has done me excellent service. My only trouble has been to get it done; for there are apt to be reasons?--(haste, lateness in the season, etc.)--for plowing shallowly for "just this time," with full intent to do henceforth better.

I close this paper with a statement made to me by an intelligent British farmer living at Maidstone, south of England. He said:

"A few years ago there came into my hands a field of twelve acres, which had been an orchard; but the trees were hopelessly in their dotage. They must be cut down; then their roots must be grubbed out; so I resolved to make a clean job of it, and give the field a thorough trenching.

Choosing a time in Autumn or early Winter when labor was abundant and cheap, I had it turned over three spits (27 inches) deep; the lowest being merely reversed; the next reversed and placed at the top; the surface being reversed and placed below the second. The soil was strong and deep, as that of an orchard should be; I planted the field to Garden Peas, and my first picking was very abundant. About the time that peas usually begin to wither and die, the roots of mine struck the rich soil which had been the first stratum, but was now the second, and at once the stalks evinced a new life--threw out new blossoms, which were followed by pods; and so kept on blossoming and forming peas for weeks, until this first crop far more than paid the cost of trenching and cultivation."

Thus far my English friend. Who will this year try a patch of Peas on a plat made rich and mellow for a depth of at least two feet, and frequently moistened in Summer by some rude kind of irrigation?

The fierceness of our Summer suns, when not counteracted by frequent showers, shortens deplorably the productiveness of many Vegetables and Berries. Our Strawberries bear well, but too briefly; our Peas wither up and cease to blossom after they have been two or three weeks plump enough to pick. Our Raspberries, Blackberries, etc., fruit well, but are out of bearing too soon after they begin to yield their treasures. I am confident that this need not be. With a deep, rich soil, kept moistened by a periodical flow of water, there need not and should not be any such haste to give over blooming and bearing. The fruit is Nature's attestation of the geniality of the season, the richness and abundance of the elements inhering in the soil or supplied to it by the water.

Double the supply of these, and sterility should be postponed to a far later day than that in which it is now inaugurated.

XV.

PLOWING--GOOD AND BAD.

There are so many wrong ways to do a thing to but one right one that there is no reason in the impatience too often evinced with those who contrive to swallow the truth wrong end foremost, and thereupon insist that it won't do. For instance: A farmer hears something said of deep plowing, and, without any clear understanding of or firm faith in it, resolves to give it a trial. So he buys a great plow, makes up a strong team, and proceeds to turn up a field hitherto plowed but six inches to a depth of a foot: in other words, to bury its soil under six inches of cold, sterile clay, sand, or gravel. On this, he plants or sows grain, and is lucky indeed if he realizes half a crop. Hereupon, he reports to his neighbors that Deep Plowing is a humbug, as he suspected all along; but now he knows, for he has tried it. There are several other wrong ways, which I will hurry over, in order to set forth that which I regard as the right one.

Here is a middling farmer of the old school, who walks carefully in the footsteps of his respected grandfather, but with inferior success, because sixty annual harvests, though not particularly luxuriant, have partially exhausted the productive capacity of the acres he inherited.

He now garners from fifteen to thirty bushels per acre of Corn, from ten to twenty of Wheat, from fifteen to twenty of Rye, from twenty to thirty of Oats, and from a tun to a tun and a half of Hay, as the season proves more or less propitious, and just contrives to draw from his sixty to one hundred acres a decent subsistence for his family; plowing, as his father and grandfather did, to a depth of five to seven inches: What can Deep Plowing do for _him_?

I answer--By itself, nothing whatever. If in every other respect he is to persist in doing just as his father and his grandfather did, I doubt the expediency of doubling the depth of his furrows. True, the worst effects of the change would be realized at the outset, and I feel confident that his six inches of subsoil, having been made to change places with that which formerly rested upon it, must gradually be wrought upon by air, and rain, and frost, until converted into a tolerably productive soil, through which the roots of most plants would easily and speedily make their way down to the richer stratum which, originally surface, has been transposed into subsoil. But this exchange of positions between the original surface and subsoil is not what I mean by Deep Plowing, nor anything like it. What I _do_ mean is this:

Having thoroughly underdrained a field, so that water will not stand upon any part of its surface, no matter how much may there be deposited, the next step in order is to increase the depth of the soil. To this end, procure a regular sub-soil plow of the most approved pattern, attach to it a strong team, and let it follow the breaking-plow in its furrow, lifting and pulverizing the sub-soil to a depth of not less than six inches, but leaving it in position exactly where it was. The surface-plow turns the next furrow upon this loosened sub-soil, and so on till the whole field is thus pulverized to a depth of not less than twelve inches, or, better still, fifteen. Now, please remember that you have twice as much soil per acre to fertilize as there was before; hence, that it consequently requires twice as much manure, and you will have laid a good foundation for increased crops. I do not say that all the additional outlay will be returned to you in the increase of your next crop, for I do not believe anything of the sort; but I _do_ believe that this crop will be considerably larger for this generous treatment, especially if the season prove remarkably dry or uncommonly wet; and that you will have insured better crops in the years to come, including heavier gra.s.s, after that field shall once more be laid down; and that, in case of the planting of that field to fruit or other trees, they will grow faster, resist disease better, and thrive longer, than if the soil were still plowed as of old. (I shall insist hereafter on the advantage and importance of subsoiling orchards.)

Take another aspect--that of subsoiling hill-sides to prevent their abrasion by water:

I have two bits of warm, gravelly hill-side, which bountifully yield Corn, Wheat and Oats, but which are addicted to washing. I presume one of these bits, at the south-east corner of my farm, has been plowed and planted not less than one hundred times, and that at least half the fertilizers applied to it have been washed into the brook, and hence into the Hudson. To say that $1,000 have thus been squandered on that patch of ground, would be to keep far within the truth. And, along with the fertilizers, a large portion of the finer and better elements of the original soil have thus been swept into the brook, and so lavished upon the waters of our bay. But, since I had those lots thoroughly subsoiled, all the water that falls upon them when in tillage sinks into the soil, and remains there until drained away by filtration or evaporation; and I never saw a particle of soil washed from either save once, when a thaw of one or two inches on the surface, leaving the ground solidly frozen beneath, being quickly followed by a pouring rain, washed away a few bushels of the loosened and sodden surface, proving that the law by virtue of which these fields were formerly denuded while in cultivation is still active, and that Deep Plowing is an effective and all but unfailing antidote for the evil it tends to incite.

We plow too many acres annually, and do not plow them so thoroughly as we ought. In the good time coming, when Steam shall have been so harnessed to a gang of six to twelve plows that, with one man guiding and firing, it will move as fast as a man ought to walk, steaming on and thoroughly pulverizing from twelve to twenty-five acres per day, I believe we shall plow at least two feet deep, and plow not less than twice before putting in any crop whatever. Then we may lay down a field in the confident trust that it will yield from two and a half to three tuns of good hay per annum for the next ten or twelve years; while, by the help of irrigation and occasional top-dressing, it may be made to average at least three tuns for a life-time, if not forever.

When my Gra.s.s-land requires breaking up--as it sometimes does--I understand that it was not properly laid down, or has not been well treated since. A good grazing farmer once insisted in my hearing that gra.s.s-land should _never_ be plowed--that the vegetable mold forming the surface, when the timber was first cut off; should remain on the surface forever. Considering how uneven the stumps and roots and cradle-knolls of a primitive forest are apt to leave the ground, I judge that this is an extreme statement. But land once thoroughly plowed and subsoiled ought thereafter to be kept in gra.s.s by liberal applications of Gypsum, well-cured Muck, and barn-yard Manure to its surface, without needing to be plowed again and reseeded. Put back in Manure what is taken of in Hay, and the Gra.s.s should hold its own.

XVI.

THOROUGH TILLAGE.

My little, hilly, rocky farm teaches lessons of thoroughness which I would gladly impart to the boys of to-day who are destined to be the farmers of the last quarter of this century. I am sure they will find profit in farming better than their grandfathers did, and especially in putting their land into the best possible condition for effective tillage. There were stones in my fields varying in size from that of a bra.s.s kettle up to that of a hay-c.o.c.k--some of them raising their heads above the surface, others burrowing just below it--which had been plowed around and over perhaps a hundred times, till I went at them with team and bar, or (where necessary) with drill and blast, turned or blew them out, and hauled them away, so that they will interfere with cultivation nevermore. I insist that this is a profitable operation--that a field which will not pay for such clearing should be planted with trees and thrown out of cultivation conclusively. Dodging and skulking from rock to rock is hard upon team, plow, and plowman; and it can rarely pay.

Land ribbed and spotted with fast rocks will pay if judiciously planted with Timber--possibly if well set in Fruit--but tilling it from year to year is a thankless task; and its owner may better work by the day for his neighbors than try to make his bread by such tillage.

So with fields soaked by springs or sodden with stagnant water. If you say you cannot afford to drain your wet land, I respond that you can still less afford to till it without draining. If you really cannot afford to fit it for cultivation, your next best course is to let it severely alone.

A poor man who has a rough, rugged, sterile farm, which he is unable to bring to its best possible condition at once, yet which he clings to and must live from, should resolve that, if life and health be spared him, he will reclaim one field each year until all that is not devoted to timber shall have been brought into high condition. When his Summer harvest is over, and his Fall crops have received their last cultivation, there will generally be from one to two Autumn months which he can devote mainly to this work. Let him take hold of it with resolute purpose to improve every available hour, not by running over the largest possible area, but by dealing with one field so thoroughly that it will need no more during a long life-time. If it has stone that the plow will reach, dig them out; if it needs draining, drain it so thoroughly that it may hereafter be plowed in Spring so soon as the frost leaves it; and now let soil and subsoil be so loosened and pulverized that roots may freely penetrate them to a depth of fifteen to twenty inches, finding nourishment all the way, with incitement to go further if ever failing moisture shall render this necessary. Drouth habitually shortens our Fall crops from ten to fifty per cent.; it is sure to injure us more gravely as our forests are swept away by ax and fire; and, while much may be done to mitigate its ravages by enriching the soil so as to give your crops an early start, and a rank, luxuriant growth, the farmer's chief reliance must still be a depth of soil adequate to withstand weeks of the fiercest sunshine.

I have considered what is urged as to the choice of roots to run just beneath the surface, and it does not signify. Roots seek at once heat and moisture; if the moisture awaits them close to the surface, of course they mainly run there, because the heat is there greatest. If moisture fails there, they must descend to seek it, even at the cost of finding the heat inadequate--though heat increases and descends under the fervid suns which rob the surface of moisture. Make the soil rich and mellow ever so far down, and you need not fear that the roots will descend an inch lower than they should. _They_ understand their business; it is _your_ sagacity that may possibly prove deficient.

I suspect that the average farmer does far too little plowing--by which I mean, not that he plows too few acres, for he often plows too many, but that he should plow oftener as well as deeper and more thoroughly.

I spent three or four of my boyish Summers planting and tilling Corn and Potatoes on fields broken up just before they were planted, never cross-plowed, and of course tough and intractable throughout the season.

The yield of Corn was middling, considering the season; that of Potatoes more than middling; yet, if those fields had been well plowed in the previous Autumn, cross-plowed early in the Spring; and thoroughly harrowed just before planting-time, I am confident that the yield would have been far greater, and the labor (save in harvesting) rather less--the cost of the Fall plowing being over-balanced by the saving of half the time necessarily given to the planting and hoeing.

Fall Plowing has this recommendation--it lightens labor at the busier season, by transferring it to one of comparative dullness. I may have said that I consider him a good farmer who knows how to make a rainy day equally effective with one that is dry and fair; and, in the same spirit, I count him my master in this art who can make a day's work in Autumn or Winter save a day's work in Spring or Summer. Show me a farmer who has no land plowed when May opens, and is just waking up to a consciousness that his fences need mending and his trees want tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, and I will guess that the sheriff will be after him before May comes round again.

There is no superst.i.tion in the belief that land is (or may be) enriched by Fall Plowing. The Autumn gales are freighted with the more volatile elements of decaying vegetation. These, taken up wherever they are given of in excess, are wafted to and deposited in the soils best fitted for their reception. Regarded simply as a method of fertilizing, I do not say that Fall Plowing is the cheapest; I _do_ say that any poor field, if well plowed in the Fall, will be in better heart the next Spring, for what wind and rain will meantime have deposited thereon. Frost, too, in any region where the ground freezes, and especially where it freezes and thaws repeatedly, plays an important and beneficial part in aerating and pulverizing a freshly plowed soil, especially one thrown up into ridges, so as to be most thoroughly exposed to the action of the more volatile elements. The farmer who has a good team may profitably keep the plow running in Autumn until every rood that he means to till next season has been thoroughly pulverized.

In this section, our minute chequer-work of fences operates to obstruct and impede Plowing. Our predecessors wished to clear their fields, at least superficially, of the loose, troublesome bowlders of granite wherewith they were so thickly sown; they mistakenly fancied that they could lighten their own toil by sending their cattle to graze, browse, and gnaw, wherever a crop was not actually on the ground; so they fenced their farms into patches of two or ten acres, and thought they had thereby increased their value! That was a sad miscalculation. Weeds, briars and bushes were sheltered, and nourished by these walls; weasels, rats and other destructive animals, found protection and impunity therein; a wide belt on either side was made useless or worse; while Plowing was rendered laborious, difficult, and inefficient, by the necessity of turning after every few hundred steps. We are growing slowly wiser, and burying a part of these walls, or building them into concrete barns or other useful structures; but they are still far too plentiful, and need to be dealt with more sternly. O squatter on a wide prairie, on the bleak Plains, or in a broad Pacific valley, where wood must be hauled for miles and loose stone are rarely visible, thank G.o.d for the benignant dispensation which has precluded you from half spoiling your farm by a multiplicity of obstructing, deforming, fences, and so left its soil free and open to be everywhere pervaded, loosened, permeated, by the renovating Plow!