No. (5. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 273 



TIIK SOUTHKKN COW TEA ANJ) ITS I'KOIiABLE J'LAOK IN 

 TIIK AGiaCULTUKP: OF THE MIJ)I)LE STATES. 



Bv I'lioF. W. h\ Massev, Horticulturist of the Nsrth OaroUna Exi>friment Station ami Eilitur of the 



Practical Farmer of Pliiladcliphin, Pa. 



The great problem lliat has for years engaged the attention of 

 thoughtful farmers ou all the older cultivated lauds in the country, 

 is how to restore and retain the humus which long cultivation has 

 taken from the soil, and the loss of which has resulted in a more 

 dilticult mechanical condition and a greater tendency to suffer 

 from droughts. This is particularly an important matter in the 

 South, for in the southern uplands the original supply of humus 

 has always been smaller in the North, and the continuous cul- 

 tivation of the soil in the cleanest culture ])racticed, that of the 

 cotton crop, has deprived the soil of what it had. In the open wood- 

 lands of the southern hills the wind in winter blows the leaves 

 off into the bottom, while in the north the snow falls and packs 

 them in place to decay there, so that when first cleared the southern 

 uplands have a thinner coating of vegetable matter than those of 

 the north. But in all of our older cultivated lands the great defi- 

 ciency is humus. Not that humus, per se, makes the soil fertile, 

 but that it enables the plants more readily to reach the food at 

 hand through the better mechanical condition of the soil which 

 it causes, and especially is it valuable as a retainer of moisture for 

 the solution of plant food in the soil, and enabling the crops to 

 better tide over the droughts that are becoming more and more 

 common as the forests are cleared away and, finally, as a form to 

 retain nitrogen still more available. An ardent advocate for com- 

 mercial fertilizers some time since advised writers on agricultural 

 matters to "give humus a rest," and insisted that a lavish use of 

 commercial fertilizers was all that is necessary for the profitable 

 production of crops. The statement showed simply how little the 

 man knew of the conditions for the successful use of the commercial 

 fertilizers. These fertilizers do not furnish any humus-making 

 material as a stable manure does, and if we had an abundance of 

 the home-made manures there would be little deficiency in well- 

 manured soil in this respect. But, unfortunately, few farmers, if 



18—6—1903 



