The Bulletin. 77 



mental in niaintiiiniui; an ever present water supply disajipearecl also. But 

 little effort lias beiMi made by the farmer to restore these materials and con- 

 ditions so necessary to crop production. 



This ever present large supply of humus-forming materials also served most 

 efliciently to preserve the soil itself from heini; washed away. When it disap- 

 peare<l the soil wash was hastened by the tilla.ge practice so common witli cot- 

 ton, tobacco, and corn, the three principal crops of the State. 



These crops, without any reason for such a practice, are planted on high 

 beds which aid in soil-wash. Without rotation the culture of these three 

 crops is such as to prevent the formation of humus in the soil. The inferior 

 plows used for preparing for the staple crops and the sorry animals which 

 draw the plows, together, have conspired to aid in the disastrous practice of 

 shallow plowing — a practice which prevents the full use of the natural re- 

 sources of the soil and aid in its being washed away. The field which is 

 year after year plowed to the same depth has formed at the bottom of the 

 furrow a hard-pan which locks beneath the soil turned the unused mineral 

 elements of plant food, prevents the deeper penetration of the roots of grow- 

 ing crops, and checks the flow of water into the soil. The average depth of 

 plowing in the State can hardly be more than 4 inches, and the turning over 

 and over again year after year of this shallow 4 inches forces the growing 

 crops and the leaching effects of the fallen rain to exhaust it. When heavy 

 rains fall the prepared 4 inches becomes filled with water which cannot go 

 deeper, since the many passages of the plow over the same subsurface have 

 sealed it. 



As soon as the 4 inches is full of water, the particles of the soil are partly 

 lifted by the water, and, the water occupying all the spaces between the soil 

 particles, lubricates them, so to speak. With such conditions, on soils that 

 have any fall, the water must flow off, since it cannot percolate down ; and, 

 flowing off, washes away the soil, the vegetable matter plowed down and the 

 commercial fertilizers used in North Carolina at an annual cost of twelve 

 millions of dollars. Gullies form, fields are abandoned, and broomsedge, 

 briars, and finally pine take the place of cotton, tobacco, and corn. The soil 

 drifts down the branches to the creeks and on to the rivers and by the rivers 

 is emptied into the harbors along the Atlantic coast, where it costs the Na- 

 tional Government millions of dollars for its dredging from the harbors. 

 Soil wash costs the State annually more than all the fires cost. It is the 

 most expensive drain upon the resources of the State, and every patriotic 

 citizen should strive to check it. If any man should burn his residence or 

 barn he would be prosecuted for arson, yet a greater destruction of the State's 

 resources is going on in the washing away of the soil on the farms of the 

 State, and the offenders are not prosecuted. The soil is God-given, and we 

 have no right to allow Its destruction. 



The average farmer has come to look upon the use of commercial fertilizers 

 as the only means by which he may increase crop production, and seems to 

 have overlooked the benefits that he may secure from the more direct treatment 

 of the soil itself. Soil treatment aims at the conservation of the soil itself. 

 the improvement of its physical condition and the liberation of the "locked up" 

 elements of plant food which naturally exist in the soil. The two main 

 things which any farmer can do to bring about these conditions are deeper 

 plowing and the adding of a permanent supply of humus to the soil. Having 

 accomplished these, the other things necessary to high yields and profitable 

 yields will naturally follow. 



If a soil has been plowed year after year to the depth of 4 inches only, this 

 4 inches has been prepared for the use of the crop, and to a great extent the 

 crop has limited its root activity to this 4 inches of depth, and the immense 

 store of plant foods underneath remain unused. Should this soil be broken 

 to 8 inches instead of 4, and brought to as good a condition of tilth as the 

 first 4 inches, the area available for the exercise of the functions of the roots 

 of the plants would he doubled, or in practice more than doubled, since the 8 

 inches would protect the plant and its roots from extremes of change to which 

 the soil nearer the surface is subjected. Eight inches of soil will hold twice 



