Farm and Garden

King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 211, 25 November 1909, Page 3

Farm and Garden

-.MINI n'S CROPS. Th'- r.' arc- two classes of crops. k-gum-i; or nitrogen-gathering and non-l-.-guminous. Among the latter may be named wheat, oats, and rye. When the ground is left bare, as after harvesting wheat and oats, there may be large losses of nitrogen from the soil. It is the period when the soil is warm and nitrification may be taking place rapidly. If some crop is grown it will use up the nitrates and prevent their loss in drainage wastes. Also, every crop grown takes op some of the mineral matter of the soil. When these crops are turned under at the end of the growing season all the plant food used by the plant is restored to the soil in the vegetable matter, which will form humus and leave the plant food available for the succeeding crop. The leguminous plants, or legumes, as they are sometimes called, are those which bear their seeds in bivalve pods. All the peas, beans, and clovers belong: to this class of plants. The peculiar characteristic of these plants is their power, through the agency of bacteria living on their roots, to make use of the free nitrogen of the air. There are about 70,000,0001b0f atmospheric nitrogen resting over every acre of the earth's surface, hence it is a great boon to the farmer that he has the means of drawing freely upon this supply, instead of having to pay Is to Is fid"per lb for it in fertilisers. Most plants must have nitrogen stored up in the soil for their use. The only adequate means of keeping a sufficient ?tore of nitrogen in the soil is to return all the manure possible and grow leguminous crops to turn under or to feed stock to produce manure. In order to grow leguminous.crops successfully, certain conditions have to be iret. There roust be plenty of mineral plant food in the soil, and sufficient lime to prevent acidity of the soil, as the bacteria living on the roots of the various plants do not thrive in an acid soil. The legumes are also heavy feeders, as shown by the fact that a ton of clover hay takes out of the soil 401b of nitrogen, 111b of phosphoric acid, and 301b potash. It is a popular mistake that legumes can be grown and the corp removed indefinitely, and that at the same time the soil will improve. The only element of soil fertility that these plants can get outside of the soil is nitrogen, but they are heavy feeders on the mineral elements of plant food. Hpmoving large and numerous crops of any of these plants will certainly leave the soil more deficient in the mineral ingredients. It is true that soil will produce better after a crop of clover has been grown and removed, but this is to be explained by the fact that the clover uses both soil nitrogen and atmospheric nitrogen, and that there may be left in the roots nitrogen taken from the atmosphere, in excess of the soil nitrogen removed; and further, that the deep roots of leguminous plants bring up mineral matter from the lower depths of the soil, where it would not be reached by shallow rooting crops. Too much stress cannot be placed upon the necessity for keeping up a good humus supply. No soil can produce maximum crops without it. There are many acres of land abandoned as unproductive which could be productiveness by getting humus back into it. In many instances this may be done by beginning with leguminous crops for green manuring, while in other instances it may be necessary to use only phosphates, as is the case in the new lands at Heytesbury Forest. In some cases it may be necessary to use potash salts, but it is believed that they are fewer than are generally supposed. A good humus supply cannot be kept up unless there is an abundant supply of stable manure at band, far more than is produced on the average farm.

THE FEEDING OF THE CALF. While the dairy communities throughout the land are turning their attention very seriously to improving their dairy herds and to breeding and raising better animals, there is a very important phase of the industry being lost sight of. If we are to improve the individual animals of the herds, we must pay proper attention to all the stepsl in the process. The first step is that of the ascertainment of which cattle to use for breeding purposes. The second is the care of the progeny. To breed a good calf and then t? rear it in luch a way that it will not be developed to its very best, is but a half-hearted method of improving stock.

Many a promising calf becomes stunted and ill-developed through the property of the feed it is reared on. There can be no question about the superiority of the well-nourished calf. The youngster brought up on whole milk becomes not only a much better heifer, but a much more proilfic dairy cow than the one which makes its meals off whey. There is a great difference, too, in the constitutions of the two animals; and unless a calf is so fed that it can build up a good constitution, it will not grow to be a strong cow and a heavy milker.

Newly-planted trees should recievc root waterings if a warm, dry period supervenes. It will materially assist them if a fairly liberal mulching of old manure is spread over the root;-. See that all standards and others subject to wind-waving arc securely staked and tied. Heavy crops of apples and pear.", upon trained trees, will well repay reasonable* thinning. If four or five apples appear in a cluster it is obviously unwise to permit them all to remain. In the case of such treefruiting varieties as Lord Suffn Id it i ; permissible to let most of them r< main until the largest attain to cuiniarv size, when tehy may h<- remove Th:.will insure the other:-: - irr r freely; such trcatmr:.- cr.ar.of \ - alivsed in the case of .; t apples, nor yet for ; '-nr.-.