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
We are selling some cows this fall,--trying to weed out our herd by
the Babcock test which shows that "some cows don't pay their board
and keep," to quote Governor Hoard's lecture on "Cows versus Cows,"
which Percy heard at Olney the winter Professor Barstow was married.
The "versus cows" are worth only $45.
I cannot tell you how I have enjoyed the summer. Sir Charles Henry
is the dearest child, and his grandmother insists upon it that it is
better for me to help Percy in the field with such light work as I
can do, and I am out for a few hours every day when the weather is
good. Percy's mother is such a dear. I am sure she could be no more
sweet and loving to an own daughter. She had Percy all to herself
for so long that I was really afraid she might not like to share him
with me, but Percy says that it was his mother who persuaded him to
make us that Easter visit. We tell her that she hasn't much use for
either of us now, and that we are likely to get jealous because
Charles Henry gets so much of her affection.
I forgot to tell you of Percy's four-acre patch of wheat. He said it
is so long to wait till 1912 for his first wheat crop on land that
had grown clover at least once during historic times that he thought
he would fix up a little patch to grow a crop of wheat, just to see
how real wheat would look; or, as he sometimes says, to see how
wheat grows in "Egypt" when it has a ghost of a chance.
He treated a four-acre patch down by the wood's pasture with
limestone, phosphorus, and farm manure, did the "Terry Act" in
preparing the seed bed, and drilled in a good variety of wheat, on
October 17,--a little later than he likes to finish sowing wheat. It
came up with a good stand but did not make very much fall growth,
partly owing to the dry weather. In the spring the man came across
the patch and reported to Percy that the wheat was mighty small and
he guessed it was "gone up," although it seemed to be all alive.
Percy said that he would not worry about it if it were alive because
the wheat would find something to please it when it really woke up
in the spring. I reckon it did, for a neighbor passed on his way to
town in early May and called over the fence to Percy that his patch
of rye down by the woods was looking fine. Well the four acres
yielded 129-1/2 bushels, or a little more than thirty-two bushels
per acre. Percy said if he could have eighty acres of it and sell it
for $1.18 a bushel, the same as he got for the last he sold, it
would amount to twice the original cost of the land--and then some.
Mr. Barton asked him if he could not raise "just as good crops with
good old farm manure," and if he could not build up his whole farm
with farm manure. Percy said yes, but he would need three thousand
tons for the first application. Mr. Barton then suggested that that
was more than the whole township produced.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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