SOME GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 363 



of the land bare of vegetation in winter than through the cropping of cotton 

 in the summer. While a green cover crop is important in any part of the 

 country, as a trap for the nitrates in winter, it is of far greater importance 

 in the South where there is little or no snow and where there is more rain 

 in winter than hard freezing. But the same practice of one cropping will 

 lead to soil exhaustion and "old fields" as surely in che wheat fields of the 

 Northwest, though the fertility of the soil may stand it longer; but when once 

 the soil in that climate is depleted it will be harder to restore it than in the 

 climate of the South. 



7. The Southern uplands are naturally more deficient in humus than 

 those of the North. In the Northern forests the leaves fall early and the 

 snow packs them down where they fall, so that the hills gather humus. In 

 the Southern uplands, the leaves fall more gradually in the autumn, and the 

 winds blow the dry leaves off into the low grounds and hollows, accumulating 

 fertile hollows and bottoms, while little humus accumulates on the hills from 

 the lack of snow to hold the leaves there. Hence in the improvement of the 

 Southern hills, the stocking of the soil with vegetable decay to remedy this 

 defect is the most important thing. 



8. The blood red clay of the Southern Piedmont plateau only needs 

 proper plowing and cultivation, and the accumulation of humus in it, to make 

 it a productive soil, for, being the result of the decay of feldspathic rocks, 

 it is well supplied with all the mineral elements of plant food, and only needs 

 the proper tillage and the accumulation of nitrogenous organic matter to 

 make it a productive soil. On these soils deep and thorough plowing and 

 subsoiling, and rapid, clean and shallow culture, with a good rotation of crops 

 in which the legumes are frequently brought on the land and the manure 

 made from their feeding is used as an additional source of humus and 

 plant food, will give better results without an ounce of commercial fertilizer 

 than they will with the annual scratching and application of costly fertilizers. 



9. While some of our flat and low lying soils abounding in humus may 

 give profitable crops through the heavy application of fertilizers year after 

 year, the same course on the upland soils will not result in profit either to the 

 land or the owner. 



10. Hence to make the liberal use of commercial fertilizers profitable a 

 well adjusted system of crop rotation is essential. The experiments at the Ohio 

 Station through a series of years gave the following results, as stated in their 

 bulletin: "At the prices at which mixed fertilizers are sold in Ohio the at- 

 tempt to furnish all the nitrogen, as well as all the phosphoric acid and pot- 

 ash required to produce increase in cereal crops grown in continuous culture, 

 has invariably resulted in pecuniary loss, although very large increase of crop 



