THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
11&9 
IMPORTANCE OF CROP ROTATION. 
Restoring Humus to Soil. 
The decadence of the farms in the Miami Valley, 
Ohio, is owing, almost entirely, to the loss of hu¬ 
mus in the soil. The elements of fertility are not 
exhausted, but are held, inert, because of lack of 
humus. This will be at once apparent to any close 
observer. A carefully planned rotation will rapidly 
restore proper conditions, and this 
seems to he the only practical remedy. 
All farmers know that wheat cannot 
safely be sown the second time, imme¬ 
diately following wheat. The same is 
true of corn, oats, rye, potatoes, etc. 
Out corn may successfully follow wheat, 
outs or potatoes, and wheat may safely 
follow corn, oats, potatoes, etc. As all of 
these crops draw substantially the same 
elements of fertility from the soil, a lit¬ 
tle thought will show that the failure of 
crops is not caused by soil exhaustion. 
The theory that a crop of any kind of 
grain creates a toxic poison in the soil, 
whifch affects unfavorably the growth 
of a second crop immediately succeed¬ 
ing, seems to explain why there should 
be a careful rotation. The toxin seems 
to affect injuriously only the kind of 
plants from which it originated. 
Some of our most successful farmers 
adopt the following rotation with suc¬ 
cess: Beginning with clover, in Fall 
and during Winter apply all the manure avail¬ 
able with manure spreader; plow in Spring, not 
too early; plant in corn, preferably in check¬ 
rows. At last plowing of corn, sow, before the 
plow, three pecks or more of rye per acre. Again 
during Winter apply light dressing of coarse manure. 
Blow in Spring, not too early, and sow in oats, 2*4 
bushels per acre. Break oat stubble early, and sow 
in wheat, about lty bushel per acre. Sow clover seed 
in following Spring. 10 pounds per acre. 
The clover seed is sown as follows:—Five pounds 
per acre are sown rather early, say last of Feb¬ 
ruary, or quite early in March, on light snow if 
possible. Then about three weeks later the remain¬ 
ing five pounds per acre are sown, crosswise. Thus 
there are no skips. Early and late conditions have 
each a chance; a stand must be secured. Of 
course the key to this rotation is clover. It will be 
noticed that at no time are the fields left bare in the 
Winter, and the maximum amount of green crops 
are plowed down to make the necessary humus. 
Commercial fertilizers may be profitably applied to 
soil before either the wheat, oats or corn. (Jive the 
most careful and thorough preparation of the soil 
for each of above named crops. There need not he 
a single failure. Try.to secure of each a bumper 
crop. It is easily done, if thorough preparation is 
given, and it is well to remember that half crops are 
usually produced at a loss. bexj. f. axbaugh. 
same time, to lay the ditches out in pairs, so that the 
dirt can be thrown on opposite banks, this for econ¬ 
omy in back filling, as the team can be driven down 
one ditch and back on the other. When working in 
ground not suited to the trenching machine we use 
for ordinary farm drains eight Italian laborers, two 
graders and a tile layer, a heavy span of horses and 
two men to work them, p 1 owing the ditches, distrib¬ 
uting tile and plowing or scraping the dirt back into 
A PRACTICAL DRAINAGE TALK. 
The R. N.-Y. has had much to say about draining 
which has boon all right and helpful. I for one have 
boon interested, but have not a large enough joh to war¬ 
rant a ditching machine, nor is there interest enough to 
warrant the purchase with the idea of getting outside 
work. The cost of hand digging has looked so big that 
1 have not even started; but last evening I visited an 
ex-college professor, who is laying a carload of tile on 
bis farm about four miles from me. When I saw his 
tools I decided that I could afford to lay tile. I would 
Drainage Pi.ow and Tools. Fig. 157. 
suggest that an illustrated article in The R. N.-Y show¬ 
ing methods and tools, written by a man of experience, 
would be of great benefit. j. l. d. 
-Maine. 
METHODS AND CREW.—I understand that the 
inquirer wishes to know how tile drains are con¬ 
structed where the ditches have to be dug without 
:l regular trenching machine. It is a good practice 
where several drains are under construction at the 
OUTFLOW GATE AND DRAINAGE WELL. Fig. 456. 
the ditches after the tile have been covered by hand 
with six inches of clay. The tile man does this blind¬ 
ing after laying the tile. In sandy places the clay 
has to be drawn to him. 
MAKING THE TRENCHES.—Strike them out 
with a common plow, turning the dirt on the bank 
opposite the grade stakes so the stations can be pre¬ 
served for use in setting targets for the graders 
to work to. After the ditches are struck out 
put a long evener (eight feet between single-tree 
clevises) on the ditching plow and lengthen the cross 
lines about two feet so the team can straddle the 
ditch. Plow down and back and let the men throw 
out the loose dirt while more ditches are being 
plowed. Have several ditches under way at one 
time, so that part of the Italians can always have 
shoveling while the rest are helping with pick and 
shovel, taking out high, hard places left by the plow. 
the vertical spaces 
This is after the tar¬ 
gets are set. It takes 
about three plowings, 
more or less, accord¬ 
ing to the depth of 
cut and condition of 
the ground. A good 
type of ditching plow 
is shown in Fig. 457. 
Care should be taken 
that the plowing is 
not made too deep in 
the low, soft places, 
as that will make 
more work with the 
pickaxes in the high, 
hard places when cor¬ 
relating the g r a d e 
line. 
GRADING THE 
BOTTOM.—T his is 
accomplished by ei¬ 
ther the target meth¬ 
od or gauge and line. 
I prefer the former 
for f a r m trenches. 
The targets are made 
about three feet long 
and three inches wide 
by one-half inch thick, 
jointed true and 
painted—one end red 
and the other white. 
Fig. 458 shows the 
method of setting 
targets. They are 
clamped with a small 
iron damp to a stake 
which is driven at 
the station in a way 
that brings the tar¬ 
get directly a b o v e 
the grade stake. It 
is convenient to have 
an inverted rod five 
feet long for setting 
targets. The method 
of graduating such a 
rod is shown here, 
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between short lines 
representing two one- 
lmndredths of a foot, 
which can be divided 
with the eye to sin¬ 
gle hundredths. With 
the rod set on the 
grade stake, bring 
the top of the target 
to the point on the 
rod (reading f r o m 
the top down) desig¬ 
nated in the level 
notes as cut for that 
station. W here a 
change of g r a d e is 
made the initial tar¬ 
get is set in the man¬ 
ner just described; 
then the engineer 
passes on to the next 
station, placing the 
rod on the grade 
stick, and with thumb 
marking the point of 
cut on the rod, sights 
from this point over 
the first target, and 
signals his helper to 
raise or lower the 
range target to make 
it coincide with his 
line of sight. This 
operation is shown in 
the illustration with 
a back view of the 
man with the rod, 
and his helper is ad¬ 
justing the range 
target to his line of 
v i s i o n. As has no 
doubt already become 
apparent to the read¬ 
er, the targets are 
set live feet above the 
grade line; hence, if 
the g r a d e r has a 
mark on his cleaner 
handle five feet from its point, he can test the 
grade by holding this implement vertically on 
the finished bottom and sighting over the two 
targets. A drain cleaner of the push or pull 
type is shown with the plow, and also a narrow 
long-bladed spade such as we used to use. For a 
good many years my graders have found a much 
better tool for the work in a common long-handled 
shovel with a round point. We cut IM/t inch off 
each side and put on a spading step. 
This tool brings the operator's foot 
nearer the ground than is the case with 
the long-bladed spade, so he can better 
thrust his weight on the spade. This 
handle also has a five-foot mark for 
testing the grade. 
LAYING THE TILE.—The tile are 
distributed along the bank within easy 
reach of the man in the ditch. Com¬ 
mencing at the outlet proceed to lay 
them in. and tap them with the heel 
of boot, standing on the last tile 
laid with one foot and rap it on the 
end with the other boot. This makes 
them bind together so there is less 
danger of their getting out of align¬ 
ment. If the bottom is clay an open¬ 
ing of one-quarter of an inch at the 
bottom will do no harm, but if the 
joint is open on top cover it with a 
piece of broken tile. Make the bot¬ 
tom of the joints tight when working 
in sand. 
BACK FILLING.—For this work we have used a 
great variety of tools, among which are plows, both 
disk and mould-board patterns, road machines, dump 
scrapers and a number of home-made scrapers, all 
of them having more or less merit. There is a small 
farm grader with a reversible blade that puts back 
about three-quarters of the dirt quicker and with 
less effort than any tool we have used. 
SILT WELLS.—Wells are many times useful in 
admitting surface water direct that would otherwise 
stand too long over the drain. Fig. 456 shows one of 
these wells and a flood-gate protection for outlet of 
drain. TV hen these wells can be located out of the 
way near the boundary of field or farm and inter¬ 
cept small runs that usually run water over cultivat¬ 
ed fields for quite a while in the Spring, they are 
very satisfactory indeed. Filter sinks serve the same 
purpose in a lesser degree, and are made by filling 
the trenches over the tile with fine gravel, just 
coarse enough so it will not pass into the drain 
through the joints of the tile. 
A very simple way of making the flood-gate for 
outlet protection is by bending a one-half inch round 
iron rod at right angles into the form of a staple and 
set the points back into the concrete when making 
the bulkhead, in a way that will permit of bending 
the edge of a piece of galvanized iron around the 
staple so that a clapper will be formed which covers 
the drain outlet when no water is running and is 
swung outward by water flowing against it. This 
is shown in Fig 456. j. f. van schooxhoven. 
USING OLD PLASTER. 
I have a nice strip of sandy loam which produces good 
potatoes. I have a chance to get five loads of plaster 
from an old building. Would you tell me whether 
this would be all right to spread on this ground and 
plow it? s> K 
Connecticut. 
You do not say how large this piece is, so cannot 
Setting The Targets. Fig. 45S. 
say how much lime to the acre such a dose would 
make. Plaster contains about 250 pounds of lime 
to the ton. There are also small quantities of nitro¬ 
gen and phosphoric acid. Unless the plastering can 
be crushed or ground fine there will be but little 
effect from its use one way or the other. The gest 
use we have found for such materials is to pile it 
around fruit trees or current bushes. 
