The Dawn of a New Constructive Era 97 



Soil Improvement Crops 



By S. M. Tracy 



Agronomist, Office of Forage Crop Investigation, 

 United States Department of Agriculture 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: — Mr. Piper gives a long list of 

 forage crops which can be grown successfully and profitably here 

 on most of our Southern soils, but before we can grow those crops 

 we must have something on which to grow them. A good crop of 

 grass, of legume, of corn or of anything else has to have a foun- 

 dation ; it has to have something on which to live. We have 

 many good soils in the Pine Woods country, but all soils, wher- 

 ever they may be located, can be improved, but we must learn 

 how we can make our poor soils good, and our good soils better. 



Our pine soils, as a rule, are very deficient in humus. We 

 must supply that first. When that is supplied we may go out after 

 much more profitable crops that we can produce on our cut-over 

 lands. Humus is the first essential thing in soils. We can add 

 nitrogen, if you want to, but without the humus, the decayed vege- 

 table and animal matter, you are bound to be disappointed ; you 

 will sufifer from drouths and floods and your crop will not be what 

 you had a right to expect. The average pile of bricks has enough 

 phosphoric acid and potash for a good crop. But you have to have 

 some humus to hold that soil in the condition in which the plants Humus Must 

 can assimilate it. The soils of our pine woods lands, both the Be Restored 

 cut-over lands and the virgin timber lands, contain very little humus. *^ '^^" 

 They have been burned year after year, generation after generation, 

 until the humus is thoroughly destroyed ; all of the available nitro- 

 gen driven off, and they are in a condition where they produce any- 

 thing but desirable crops. Every burning we give to a pine woods, 

 or wild lands of any kind, destroys more humus and nitrogen and 

 exhausts the soil more than does a crop of corn or cotton. The 

 fire is the most expensive crop we have. Soil is far from being 

 enriched by burning; it always makes it poorer; and before we 

 can get the crops which are our due we must restore the humus 

 to the soil. 



Pound for pound, the dry matter of all plants will produce 

 about the same amounts of humus. So far as is known, the value 



