CHAPTEE XIX. 

 THE RESTORATION OF WORN OUT LAND. 



There are few soils that are really worn out. Long, bad tillage and 

 cropping have made them unproductive, and have depleted the stores of 

 plant food within reach of plant roots, while right below there is a fertile 

 soil untouched by the shallow plowing of the past. Of course, there are 

 deep and leachy sands which never had much fertility to lose, and which 

 become barren when their little store of humus on the surface is exhausted; 

 and then become the hardest of soils to render productive and keep them so. 

 In all parts of the country there are lands once fertile and productive, which 

 have become unproductive through long years of bad plowing and incessant 

 cropping, which could be completely restored through their own resources, 

 if these were properly used. On level lying clay soils the first step in their 

 improvement must be drainage. It is utterly useless to expend money on 

 such soils for plant food until the air is permitted to penetrate the soil and 

 oxidize the plant food already there. Some method of under drainage, with 

 tile or boards or rocks or logs, must be the first step in the improvement of 

 low lying clay soils. Then get some organic matter there, not only for 

 the increase of fertility and the furnishing of nitrogen, but for the mechan- 

 ical mellowing of the soil. In a section where red clover thrives there is 

 nothing better, and in the Middle States and the South, the cow pea will be 

 the best means. If the soil is so reduced in fertility that clover will not make 

 a crop on it, there is a necessity at once for the use of mineral elements, 

 phosphoric acid and potash, to enable the clover to grow. We often hear 

 farmers say that their land is too poor to grow clover. Then it is too poor 

 to grow anything! If you wanted to get it to grow a crop of wheat you 

 would at once think of putting some fertilizer on it to help it. Then vhy 

 not put the fertilizer on for the crop that* is to improve the land ? Is it not 

 a little odd to see farmers, who do not hesitate to buy fertilizers for a crop 

 which they are going to at once sell off the land, try to get clover to grow with- 

 out any help from the plant food that is necessary to its growth, and which is 

 either deficient or unavailable in the soil ? The first step in the restoration 



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