The Bulletin. 



PREPARATION OF SEED BED. 



As pointed out above, practically all the corn soils of tlie State except 

 the black lands of the east will profit by the addition of liberal amounts 

 of some cheap form of organic matter. Perhaps the cheapest form iu 

 which humus can be obtained is that of green manures and crop residues. 

 Xext to this in cheapness is stable manure, of which 90 per cent of the 

 farmers have little more than enough for their gardens and a light top 

 dressing for a small part of their wheat lands. Too much stress cannot 

 be laid on the importance of organic matter in our corn lands, for Avith- 

 out it our commercial fertilizers must fail to do the maximum amount 

 of good and our crop yields must remain below the point of profitable 

 production. 



Organic matter will do more for our heavy soils than any number of 

 plowings. It makes the land mellow and friable ; it loosens up the 

 texture ; it changes the color and increases its capacity to absorb and 

 retain heat ; it permits the soil bacteria to convert the millions of pounds 

 of nitrogen in the air into nitrates ready to be consumed as food by the 

 growing crops ; it absorbs and retains moisture better than anything else 

 we can add to the land; it enables the micro-organisms of the soil to 

 convert the mineral plant-food elements into soluble and available forms 

 and holds them suspended in its capillary spaces throughout the entire 

 soil stratum, ready to be absorbed by the rapidly developing rootlets of 

 the growing vegetation; it renders clayey soils so open and porous that 

 they are seldom too dry to plow or too wet to till. Humus is the life 

 blood of the soil; therefore, let us add to the richness and volume of 

 this life blood. 



CORRECT METHOD OF HANDLIN^G GREEN MANURE "sOURING" THE SOIL. 



We hear a great deal about the "souring" of land by the too liberal 

 use of green manure, and many farmers are afraid to use it to any 

 extent on this account. 



The real explanation of this "souring" effect lies, generally, in the 

 method of handling the green manuring crop, and not in the subsequent 

 development of an excess of organic acid in the soil. 



The crop is generally plowed down with a good, strong team, hitched 

 to a big plow on which is fastened a chain for the purpose of enabling 

 the plowman to "wrap up the vines" and bury them deep enough to be 

 out of the way of subsequent cultivation. This places a layer of very 

 porous vegetable matter some two or three inches thick, say eight inches 

 under the surface. The crop is then planted and cultivated over this 

 bed of vegetable matter, and if the season is at all dry the farmer is 

 likely to lose his crop. Why? If the farmer should examine this vege- 

 table matter some weeks after it was plowed under, and Avhen his crop 

 is looking worst, he would find the soil just under this bed of vines, etc., 

 almost as wet as mud, while the soil just above it would likely be as 



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