The garden yard

Soil fertility is the power in the soil itself to produce a good crop under proper conditions. Man can neither make nor destroy the land. All that man can do is to make it more or less efficient, according to how he uses it. Two men may take two pieces of soil of equal fertility and get vastly different results; by careful study and experiment we may learn how to take advantage of this fertility; but the real secret of it, Nature has wisely locked up in the soil itself, so that one generation of men cannot really rob the next. It has been said that old-time farmers, of New England particularly, robbed the soil of its fertility, so that their sons have been compelled to abandon the old farms and seek new land in the west, or new occupations in the cities of the country. The real truth is, not that the soil has been robbed of its fertility by the fathers, but that the sons have continued the unenlightened methods of the fathers even after their ineffectualness has been proved.

Since that land was abandoned it has not really been idle. Nature has been improving it all these years by placing leaves and trees back upon it, thus providing humus; and also by the action of heat and cold. Some of this land, overgrown with briers and brush, has been cleared and found to be better and stronger than ever before. Much of the soil is sour, but that is easily remedied, and wherever a patch is burned over, the grass works in well. On some of these abandoned farms there is an excellent opportunity to combine intensive culture on the lowlands with orcharding on the hills, for the fertility is still there. If man could destroy this quality, that clings to all soil, he would have spoiled it centuries ago, and the race would have starved. But we are a long time learning how best to use it.

Robert S. Seeds, of Birmingham, Pa., thinks he has solved the secret of unlocking that soil fertility, and he offers the astounding results of his operations on an abandoned farm, as proof of his claims. He not only raises enormous crops, but he sells his soil by the bushel, to his less enlightened neighbors to inoculate their farms. He tells the story of his experiments in a lecture called “How God made the Soil Fertile,” which is published in pamphlet form and sells for 25 cents.

He says “The Lord made all the acres of the land fertile, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and gave it to man to live upon, to prosper and be happy. In doing so He never hauled a wagon-load of manure or a load of lime, nor bought a ton of fertilizer—and how did He do it? He did it with vegetable matter; and I thought if the Lord could do it, I could do it. This sounds a little conceity, but I mean it.”

As a result of this belief, Mr. Seeds took to experimenting, beginning with the crops that store nitrogen in their roots, such as crimson clover, and with purple-top strap-leaf turnip. But the results were not sufficiently great to please this man, who was after all there was in the soil. He needed some plant with longer roots, and finally hit upon the cowhorn turnip, which will grow roots from 9 inches to 2 feet long, thus making available the plant food locked up in the subsoil. Finally he combined cowhorn turnip and rape, and now his soil is the most fertile in his district, and is so profitable as an inoculator of other soils that he keeps fields free from harvest crops so as to have the soil for sale.

“Bob Seeds” further says that a field filled with the decayed vegetable matter and humus from one crop of crimson clover plowed down, will hold fifty tons more water to the acre than soil that is not. If you figure how much water you must have to raise a crop of corn, oats, potatoes, hay, etc., you will see the value of land that has the power to hold water. There was a farmer in Pennsylvania who got his farm in such a water preserving condition that he said the spring rains were a nuisance. Watch the soil and you will see, that soil that is filled with decayed vegetable matter and humus is warmer in the winter-time, cooler in the summer-time, wetter in dry weather and dryer in wet weather.

A mulch which preserves the moisture in hot or cold weather also unlocks this fertility of the soil.

All of this is of immense importance, not only to the farmer on a large scale, but also to you, with the limited area of your garden yard; for in it lies the secret of heavier and earlier crops than your less instructed neighbors. Professor Whitney, Chief of the Bureau of Soils, Department of Agriculture, Wash., says that deep plowing and shallow cultivation are the best means of retaining moisture in the soil, and he adds, “Strange as it may seem, while we suffer if we do not get rains, we should actually be better off, as they are in the arid regions of the west, if we did not have any rain during the growing season and had a means of providing water when we wanted it. The trouble with us is that we cannot maintain the dry mulch, because we have rain on the average every three days. If you knew what was coming, you could save your crop through any ordinary period of drought, provided you had the skill, the judgment and the chance which would lead you to begin your operations at just the right time.”

According to Professor Whitney there are about 400 distinct types of soil so far encountered in the United States, with varying degrees of known fertility, and only eight or ten staple crops growing. This, of course, does not include the special crops like celery; it is the regular, staple field or garden crops that are unnecessarily limited. These are grown on all kinds of soil in all parts of the country without regard to the suitability of the soil to the crop.

The Government, through the Department of Agriculture, has given a great impetus to plant introduction, and you cannot of course expect to rival or approach it, with its enormous funds and staff of experts, but you can experiment with the new crops it introduces. Hitherto, in this country, where the soil was too dry for corn or wheat, or too moist for potatoes, it has been neglected altogether; but the present movement includes finding crops suitable for these lands. The Government has introduced the durum wheat which yields crops in regions suffering from drought, and in 1905 the United States exported 6,000,000 bushels of it; Japanese Kiushu rice is doing well in Louisiana and Texas rice fields; the Japanese salad plant, the udo, is being tested from Maine to California and giving good results; Kafir corns from Abyssinia, India and East Africa are being grown in Kansas and other western sections; while the English broad bean, Hungarian paprika, and fruits from all parts of the world, are being tested in all sections of this country. Those 400 different types of soil should mean limitless diversifications of crops, and it is fair to assume that the real day of agriculture, in this country at least, is only just dawning.

The Government is now testing profitable crops for the farms of New England which have been abandoned to the mortgagees. Areas there are too small to grow corn⁠[2] and wheat in successful competition with the great farms of the west, but there are other crops which will yield even better results and command the market. You, who are now coming into the great calling of earning your living from the soil, could not have chosen a better moment for entrance. Keep in touch with the Department of Agriculture. It is your department, a sort of college or training school which you maintain, and anything you want to know the Department will gladly try to tell you. If you want to know what is best for you to plant on your patch, send a sample of your soil, tell where your farm is located, what are your means and experience, and the suggestions made will fit your particular case. If you send any of your requests, whether for advice or for bulletins, addressed simply to the Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., you will get a reply, and will find out who is the head of the special department your request was referred to. The Department is doing needed work, and by corresponding with them and getting advice, you can give proof of your interest.