The Story of the Soil; from the Basis of Absolute Science and Real LifeHopkins, Cyril G. (Cyril George)
Science
The Story of the Soil; from the Basis of Absolute Science and Real Life
Hopkins, Cyril G. (Cyril George)
Soils
You will welcome the information that the average yield of wheat on
an Illinois experiment field down here in "Egypt," in a four-year
rotation, including both cowpeas and clover, has been eleven and
one-half bushels on unfertilized land, fourteen bushels where legume
crops have been plowed under, and twenty-seven bushels where
limestone and phosphorus have been added with the legume crops
turned under; and that the aggregate value of the four crops, corn,
oats, wheat, and clover, from another "Egyptian" farm, has been
$25.97 per acre on unfertilized land, and $54.24 where limestone and
phosphorus have been applied.
In your very busy and very successful railroad experience, you may
have overlooked the reports of the Pennsylvania Agricultural
Experiment Station, showing the results of a four-year rotation of
crops that has been conducted with very great care for more than a
quarter of a century. These, you will agree, are exactly such
absolute data as we sorely need just now when facing the stupendous
problem of changing from an agricultural system whose equal has
never been known for rapidity of soil exhaustion to a system which
shall actually enrich the land. By averaging the results from the
first twelve years and also those from the second twelve years, in
this rotation of corn, oats, wheat, and hay (clover and timothy), we
find that the yields have decreased as follows:
Corn decreased 34 per cent.
Oats decreased 31 per cent.
Wheat decreased 4 per cent.
Hay decreased 29 per cent.
Appalling, is it not? It is the best information America affords in
answer to the question, Will the rotation of crops actually enrich
the land?
No, Sir. We cannot make crops nor bank accounts out of nothing. The
rotation of crops does not enrich the soil, does not even maintain
the fertility of the soil. On the contrary, the rotation of crops,
like the rotation of your check book, actually depletes the soil
more rapidly than the single system; and, if you ever have your
choice between two farms of equal original fertility, one of which
has been cropped with wheat only, and the other with a good three or
five-year rotation, for fifty years, take my advice and choose the
"worn-out" wheat farm. Then adopt a good system of cropping with a
moderate use of clover, and you will soon discover that your land is
not worn out, but "almos' new lan" as a good Swede friend of mine
reported who made a similar choice. But beware of the land that has
been truly worn out under a good rotation, which avoids the insects
and diseases of the single crop system, and also furnishes regularly
a moderate amount of clover roots which decay very rapidly and thus
stimulate the decomposition of the old humus and the liberation of
mineral plant food from the soil.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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