SUMMER FALLOWS. 



Most agi'icultural writers agree in condemning the use of tlie naked or summer falluw ; 

 and tliougli many first rate practical farmers in this country and in Europe still prac- 

 tice and recommend it as the best means of cleaning the soil and preparing it for wheat, 

 yet in the best farmiKg districts of England it is altogether dispensed with, especially on 

 the light sandy soils, the turnip crop being substituted in its })lace with advantage to the 

 soil and profit to the farmer. 



Turnips are sown in ridges, and kept clean by the free use of the horse-hoe ; and the land 

 is always plowed three times pre\ious to sowing. Hence they are rightly called a falloiv 

 crop, and leave the land in a very clean and rich state for the subsequent grain crop. 



Lidian corn is our fallow crop ; for, though it difters in very important respects as 

 regards exhaustion of the soil, yet it is similar to the turnip in affording the opportunity 

 of cleaning the land, admitting the employment of the horse-hoe throughout the summer 

 months, and succeeding best on light loamy soils, or those which are generally apt to 

 produce most weeds. Yet many good farmers, prevented by the shortness of the work- 

 ing season from cleaning the land as they would wish before planting, find it difficult, 

 and in many instances impossible, to keep their soil free from weeds without the use 

 of a summer fallow occasionally. 



Though the principal object in summer fallowing is to destroy the weeds, yet otlier 

 results are obtained equally desirable and beneficial. The constituents of plants generally 

 exist in the soil in a very insoluble condition ; and as plants will not take their food 

 except in solution, it is a matter of great importance to the farmer not only to have the 

 necessarj" elements in his soil, but to have them in that condition which is necessary for 

 their assimilation by the plants grown. There. ;s no better way of effecting this i-esult 

 than bringing as much of the soil as possible into direct contact with atmospheric air, 

 the oxygen uniting with the organized car!;>on of the soil and forming carbonic acid, 

 which exerts a powerful effect, in conjunction with water, on the insoluble mineral sub- 

 stances in the soil, disintegrating their important elements and so altering their chemical 

 combination as to supply the plants with food suited to their wants. There are also 

 noxious substances existing in many soils, especially those undrained, which oxygen 

 renders harmless. Besides the benefit of oxygen on the mineral ingredients, it exerts a 

 no less beneficial action on the organic matter found in all fertile soils. Thus there is 

 great reason to believe that plants can not take the nitrogen which they contain in the 

 form of nitrogen, but that it must be converted into ammonia or nitric acid. Now, 

 under the influence of oxygen this conversion takes place, and it can not in any way be 

 efiected without it. 



Li view of these facts, the object of the farmer will be to render his soil as permeable to 

 air as possible. Thorough under-draining is one of the grand means of doing this ; and 

 though it costs $20 to $.30 per acre, yet on many farms it is a very profitable investment. 

 Frequently plowing and stirring the land, exposing different surfaces to the atmosphere, 

 and thoroughly pulverizing the soil, are the common means used to obtain the desired 

 result. On stiff, heavy soils, those which exclude the atmosjihere and are generally full 

 of undecomposed organic matter and valuable though insoluble minerals, summer fallows 

 are attended with surprising results, and this for the reasons assigned above ; and such 

 is the richness of many of these kinds of soils, so great is the amount of fertilizers locked 

 up in them, that large crops may be obtained for many years without any apparent 

 exhn,ustion, by simply summer fallowing them. 



But on light sandy soils, which admit the atmosphere, there is no such accumulated 

 undecomposed matter ; and the only value of the summer fallow is to clean the land. 

 To obtain good crops on such soils, it is absolutely necessary to apply some kind of 



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