Agriculture for Beginners Part 23

The garden should always be within convenient distance of the farmhouse.

If possible, the spot selected should have a soil of mixed loam and clay. Every foot of soil in the garden should be made rich and mellow by manure and cultivation. The worst soils for the home garden are light, sandy soils, or stiff, clayey soils; but any soil, by judicious and intelligent culture, can be made suitable.

In laying out the garden we should bear in mind that hand labor is the most expensive kind of labor. Hence we should not, as is commonly done, lay off the garden spot in the form of a square, but we should mark off for our purpose a long, narrow piece of land, so that the cultivating tools may all be conveniently drawn by a horse or a mule. The use of the plow and the horse cultivator enables the cultivation of the garden to be done quickly, easily, and cheaply.

Each vegetable or fruit should be planted in rows, and not in little patches. Beginning with one side of the garden the following plan of arrangement is simple and complete: two rows to corn for table use; two to cabbages, beets, radishes, and eggplants; two to onions, peas, and beans; two to oyster-plants, okra, parsley, and turnips; two to tomatoes; then four on the other side can be used for strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, currants, and gooseberries.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 224. WHERE DELICIOUS GARDEN VEGETABLES GROW]

The garden, when so arranged, can be tilled in the spring and tended throughout the growing season with little labor and little loss of time.

In return for this odd-hour work, the farmer's family will have throughout the year an abundance of fresh, palatable, and health-giving vegetables and small fruits.

The keynote of successful gardening is to stir the soil. Stir it often with four objects in view:

1. To destroy weeds.

2. To let air enter the soil.

3. To enrich the soil by the action of the air.

4. To retain the moisture by preventing its evaporation.

corn corn

cabbage beets radishes cabbage beets eggplants

onions peas beans onions peas beans

oyster-plants okra parsley parsnips oyster-plants okra parsley parsnips

tomatoes tomatoes

strawberries currants raspberries blackberries strawberries currants raspberries blackberries strawberries currants raspberries blackberries strawberries currants raspberries blackberries

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 225. HOW TO LAY OUT THE GARDEN[1]]

This ill.u.s.tration shows that practically every garden vegetable and all the small fruits can be included in the farm garden, and all the work be done by horse-drawn tools.

[Footnote 1: The number of rows and arrangement of the vegetables in the outline above are merely suggestive. They should be changed to meet the needs and the tastes of each particular family.]

CHAPTER IX

FEED STUFFS

SECTION LI. GRa.s.sES

Under usual conditions no farmer expects to grow live stock successfully and economically without setting apart a large part of his land for the growth of mowing and pasture crops. Therefore to the grower of stock the management of gra.s.s crops is all-important.

In planting either for a meadow or for a pasture, the farmer should mix different varieties of gra.s.s seeds. Nature mixes them when she plants, and Nature is always a trustworthy teacher.

In planting for a pasture the aim should be to sow such seeds as will give green gra.s.s from early spring to latest fall. In seeding for a meadow such varieties should be sowed together as ripen about the same time.

Even in those sections of the country where it grows sparingly and where it is easily crowded out, clover should be mixed with all gra.s.ses sowed, for it leaves in the soil a wealth of plant food for the gra.s.ses coming after it to feed on. Nearly every part of our country has some clover that experience shows to be exactly suited to its soil and climate.

Study these clovers carefully and mix them with your gra.s.s seed.

The reason for mixing clover and gra.s.s is at once seen. The true gra.s.ses, so far as science now shows, get all their nitrogen from the soil; hence they more or less exhaust the soil. But, as several times explained in this book, the clovers are legumes, and all legumes are able by means of the bacteria that live on their roots to use the free nitrogen of the air. Hence without cost to the farmer these clovers help the soil to feed their neighbors, the true gra.s.ses. For this reason some light perennial legume should always be added to gra.s.s seed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 226. SINGLE PLANT OF GIANT MILLET]

It is not possible for gra.s.ses to do well in a soil that is full of weeds. For this reason it is always best to sow gra.s.s in fields from which cultivated crops have just been taken. Soil which is to have gra.s.s sowed in it should have its particles pressed together. The small gra.s.s seeds cannot take root and grow well in land that has just been plowed and which, consequently, has its particles loose and comparatively far apart. On the other hand, land from which a crop of corn or cotton has just been harvested is in a compact condition. The soil particles are pressed well together. Such land when mellowed by harrowing makes a splendid bed for gra.s.s seeds. A firm soil draws moisture up to the seeds, while a mellow soil acts as a blanket to keep moisture from wasting into the air, and at the same time allows the heated air to circulate in the soil.

In case land has to be plowed for gra.s.s-seeding, the plowing should be done as far as possible in advance of the seeding. Then the plowed land should be harrowed several times to get the land in a soft, mellow condition.

If the seed-bed be carefully prepared, little work on the ground is necessary after the seeds are sowed. One light harrowing is sufficient to cover the broadcast seeds. This harrowing should always be done as soon as the seeds are scattered, for if there be moisture in the soil the tiny seeds will soon sprout, and if the harrowing be done after germination is somewhat advanced, the tender gra.s.s plants will be injured.

There are many kinds of pasture and meadow gra.s.ses. In New England, timothy, red clover, and redtop are generally used for the mowing crop.

For permanent pasture, in addition to those mentioned, there should be added white clover and either Kentucky or Canadian blue gra.s.s. In the Southern states a good meadow or pasture can be made of orchard gra.s.s, red clover, and redtop. For a permanent pasture in the South, j.a.pan clover, Bermuda, and such other local gra.s.ses as have been found to adapt themselves readily to the climate should be added. In the Middle States temporary meadows and pastures are generally made of timothy and red clover, while for permanent pastures white clover and blue gra.s.s thrive well. In the more western states the gra.s.ses previously suggested are readily at home. Alfalfa is proving its adaptability to nearly all sections and climates, and is in many respects the most promising gra.s.s crop of America.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 227. BERMUDA]

It hardly ever pays to pasture meadows, except slightly, the first season, and then only when the soil is dry. It is also poor policy to pasture any kind of gra.s.s land early in the spring when the soil is wet, because the tramping of animals crushes and destroys the crowns of the plants. After the first year the sward becomes thicker and tougher, and the gra.s.s is not at all injured if it is grazed wisely.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 228. ALFALFA THE WONDERFUL The first crop of the season is being cut and stored for winter]

The state of maturity at which gra.s.s should be harvested to make hay of the best quality varies somewhat with the different gra.s.ses and with the use which is to be made of the hay. Generally speaking, it is a good rule to cut gra.s.s for hay just as it is beginning to bloom or just after the bloom has fallen. All gra.s.ses become less palatable to stock as they mature and form seed. If gra.s.s be allowed to go to seed, most of the nutrition in the stalk is used to form the seed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 229. HARVESTING ALFALFA]

Hence a good deal of food is lost by waiting to cut hay until the seeds are formed.

Pasture lands and meadow lands are often greatly improved by replowing and harrowing in order to break up the turf that forms and to admit air more freely into the soil. The plant-roots that are destroyed by the plowing or harrowing make quickly available plant food by their decay, and the physical improvement of the soil leads to a thicker and better stand. In the older sections of the country commercial fertilizer can be used to advantage in producing hay and pasturage. If, however, clover has just been grown on gra.s.s land or if it is growing well with the gra.s.s, there is no need to add nitrogen. If the gra.s.s seems to lack sufficient nourishment, add phosphoric acid and potash. However, gra.s.s not grown in company with clover often needs dried blood, nitrate of soda, or some other nitrogen-supplying agent. Of course it is understood that no better fertilizer can be applied to gra.s.s than barnyard manure.

SECTION LII. LEGUMES

Often land which was once thought excellent is left to grow up in weeds.

The owner says that the land is worn out, and that it will not pay to plant it. What does "worn out" mean? Simply that constant cropping has used up the plant food in the land. Therefore, plants on worn-out land are too nearly starved to yield bountifully. Such wearing out is so easily prevented that no owner ought ever to allow his land to become poverty-stricken. But in case this misfortune has happened, how can the land be again made fertile?

On page 24 you learned that phosphoric acid, potash, and nitrogen are the foods most needed by plants. "Worn out," then, to put it in another way, usually means that a soil has been robbed of one of these plant necessities, or of two or of all three. To make the land once more fruitful it is necessary to restore the missing food or foods. How can this be done? Two of these plant foods, namely, phosphoric acid and potash, are minerals. If either of these is lacking, it can be supplied only by putting on the land some fertilizer containing the missing food.

Fortunately, however, nitrogen, the most costly of the plant foods, can be readily and cheaply returned to poor land.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 230. ALFALFA READY FOR THE THIRD CUTTING]

As explained on page 32 the leguminous crops have the power of drawing nitrogen from the air and, by means of their root-tubercles, of storing it in the soil. Hence by growing these crops on poor land the expensive nitrogen is quickly restored to the soil, and only the two cheaper plant foods need be bought. How important it is then to grow these leguminous plants! Every farmer should so rotate his planting that at least once every two or three years a crop of legumes may add to the fruitfulness of his fields.

Moreover these crops help land in another way. They send a mult.i.tude of roots deep into the ground. These roots loosen and pulverize the soil, and their decay, at the end of the growing season, leaves much humus in the soil. Land will rarely become worn out if legumes are regularly and wisely grown.