Farmer Scrap that Plough!

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 274, 22 September 1944, Page 6

Farmer Scrap that Plough!

American Writer’s Revolutionary T heory Raises a Storm in Agricultural Circles

LITTLE more than a,vyeat ago, magazines in America became suddenly excited about a book "Plowman’s Folly," and a man, Edward H. Faulkner, and both now are arousing interest in New Zealand. Several of our daily papers for example, and at least one weekly journal, carried an advertisement last week asking New Zealand farmers to "scrap their ploughs and forget that they had ever heard of artificial fertilisers.’ The source of that advice, and the author of that revolution, if it ever happens, are that book and that man. Who is he, and what, in a nutshell, does he preach?

The Man and his Theory F the man himself we have so far not much information. Here is what his publisher says about him: "Edward H. Faulkner is an agricultural expert, who has carried on his own, experiments during recent years. Trained in agriculture at Williamsburg Baptist Institute (now Cumberland College) and at the University of Kentucky, he has been a county agent in Kentucky and Ohio, a Smith-Hughes teacher of agriculture, and a soil and crop investigator in private employment. He recently has carried on his experiments in garden plot and on a farm scale near Elyria, Ohio; his almost unbelievable yields make his experimental plots commercially profitable." And this is what is claimed for his book on the dust jacket: "Plowman’s Folly is perhaps the most important challenge to agricultural theory yet advanced in this century. Its new philosophy of the soil, based on proven principles, is completely opposed to established concepts, and may revolutionise the entire practice of cultivation in the United States. "This book,’ says Mr. Faulkner, ‘sets out to show that the mouldboard plough is the least satisfactory implement for the production of crops. . . . The fact is that no one has ever advanced a scientific reason for ploughing.’ "For generations our reasoning about the management of the soil has rested upon the use of the plough. Yet Mr. Faulkner shows rather conclusively that soil impoverishment, erosion, decreasing crop yields, and many of the adverse effects following droughts or periods of excessive rainfall may be traced directly to the accepted practice of ploughing natural fertilisers deep into the soil. His examples of perfect soil economy are drawn from Nature — the forest floor and the natural meadow-where the earth is constantly being improved through the accumulation of natural plant foods at the surface. Through his own test-plot and fieldscale experiments, in which he prepares the soil by incorporating green manures into its surface with a disc harrow, he has transformed ordinary, and even inferior, soils into extremely productive, high-yield crop lands. ; "Conversely, Mr. Faulkner shows, the act of ploughing under such materials, places them below the reach of the crop roots, creates a sub-surface ‘blotter,’ which interferes with the capillary movement of moisture upwards, and leaves the surface area a ready prey to all of the adverse forces of ,Nature. With his surface tillage, the author finds that he greatly increases his crop yield the first year, and that progressively his land is improved. Furthermore, he can bring about this greatly-in-creased fertility without the use of any of

the commercial fertilisers, and he has been able to detect a reduction in the susceptibility of his crops to insect pests." **'Time"’ is Sympathetic | HEN the book first appeared in July last year-it has since run through seven printings-"Time" suggested that it had the "general approval of U.S. Department of Agriculture officials,’ or at least that the SNPAOE: idea had, It went on to say: "The idea: that the plough is a great enemy of man. Chief exponent of this theory is an Ohio experimental farmer named Edward H. Faulkner. He believes that ploughing is responsible for erosion and most other ills of the U‘S. soil. He tested his theory by using a cultivation method of his own: instead of ploughing, he disc-harrowed the soil and planted his crops in the choppedup surface stubble, weeds and .debris. His, harvest was astonishing. Many a farmer who reads Plowman’s Folly may be tempted never to plough again. "A Kentucky farmer’s son, longtime county agent and agricultural teacher, Faulkner for 25 years has badgered farmers to tell him why they plo claims that he never got an answer that made scientific sense. Most farmers plough, he concludes, mainly because they like to. Why is it, Faulkner asks, that when crops in a ploughed field become parched and yellow, the weeds in unploughed adjoining fence-rows still grow lush and green? Why do plants in meadows and forests grow prodigiously without cultivation? Because, answers Faulkner, they are fed and protected by decaying plants on the surface of the soil. Ploughing buries this organic material beyond the reach of most roots. Besides depriving the new crop of food, the buried vegetation forms a blotter that soaks up moisture from above and below, draws it away from the surface, where it is needed. The result, Faulkner points out, is to render the bare soil a ready prey to drought or erosion by rain. Appalled at the damage done by the mouldboard plough during its 200year history, Faulkner observes that

with all their machinery, U.S, farmers get less yield per acre than Chinese peasants. . "Faulkner rented a farm and conducted a serious test. He grew a thick cover crop of rye, harrowed it in, planted in a surface that looked more like a trash pile than soil. He used no commercial fertiliser, no insecticides. He shocked neighbouring farmers by his unorthodox method of planting tomatoes: he simply laid each plant on top of the packed soil and threw a little dirt on its roots. Within 24 hours, every plant stood up straight. The source of this idea was an old text book picture of .a seedbed. Faulkner noticed. that while the seedbed was dry,.a heelprint in it looked moist; from this he developed his theory that the soil’s capillarity (its ability to draw moisture from below) is improved if it is packed rather than loose. "Faulkner’s neighbours were. still more amazed when they saw the fruit of these monkeyshines. Faulkner’s tomatoes, heavier than average, brought premium prices; he grew sweet potatoes in two months instead of the normal ~four; he harvested five pickings of beans instead of the usual one or two." "Expert"? Co-operation HE New Zealand advertisement to which reference has been made proclaims that in writing "Plowman’s Folly," Faulkner "had the co-operation of all the following, who were fully conversant with his experimenting": ' Professor Paul B. Sears, head of the Detment of Botany, Oberlin College; ussell Lord, editor of ‘"‘The Land"; Garet Garett, special writer for "The Saturday Evening Post"; Peter Vischer, editor and publisher of "The Country Life’; Ollie E. Fink, curriculum supervisor, State Department of Education, Columbus, Ohio, and says that the book was not issued until the U.S. Department of. Agriculture had "checked and conizmed its remarkable findings." "Expert" Criticism Then other experts woke up and said, in effect, that Faulkner vas "talking through his hat." Here, for example, is a broadside by Emil Truog, chairman of the Soils Department of the Wisconsin College’ of Agriculture, writing in a recent issue of Harper’s. (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) Of Professor Truog, Harper’s says that he is the originator of the Truog Soil Tests, a past president of the American Society of Agronomy, and consulting editor of Soil Science. But it introduces his article in these words: "An extraordinary phenomenon in American farm history-and in book-publishing history, for that matter-has been the furore over Edward H. Faulkner’s Plowman’s Folly, which argues that the great enemy of American agriculture is the mouldboard plough. The book has already sold more than 50,000 copies, and orders are coming in faster than the publishers can fill them. It is a subject of fierce debate in farm circles; in some Western communities it has become the staple subject of conversation. Discovering that many farmers are becoming half-converted, Professor Truog rises in the defence of the plough." Truog Says: "Right at the start, let’s acknowledge that we are doing too much ploughirig in some sections of this country. Then, having made that clear, let’s go on to say that it is nonsense to maintain as Edward H. Faulkner does in Plowman’s Folly, that the mouldboard plough has sapped the. soil of its fertility, raided the nation’s food basket, fostered crop pests, and even paved the way for the current vitamin-pill fad. "The evangelist of Plowman’s Folly bases his gospel largely on his own supposition that crop roots tend always to develop. very near the surface soil. (This is not true, as I will later explain.) The mouldboard plough, he argues, buries fertiliser and green manure well below the surface, and thus beyond the reach of crop roots, and as a result the released nutrients are of no value to the plants. "Secondly, Faulkner also visions the manure and surface residues, buried under the furrow, as a sponge layer which absorbs water as blotting*paper absorbs ink. This layer of decaying organic matter draws water from the soil above, Faulkner explains, and also interrupts the capillary rise of water from the sub-soil below. As a result, Faulkner believes, an artificial drought is produced in the surface soil, where the plants are rooted. "His third important point is that ploughing is a violation of Nature’s laws; he explains that Nature has done very well without ploughing, as exemplified by her giant redwood trees,

tropical jungles, and ~pampas grass. The naked turned over soil which the plough leaves, Faulkner continues, is bare to the wind, rain and sun. Eventually, these agencies ruin the topsoil and even remove it by erosion ofr wind. "Warming to his subject, the author claims that tillage with the disc harrow -or some other implement of shallow cultiva-tion-will cancel all the plough’s follies, and in addition eliminate weeds, make food richer in vitamins, pr event crop. diseases, and foil insect pests. Some of the advantages of us-

ing the disc harrow, as he sees them, are: (1) The sod and manure rubbish would be left near the surface — just right for the shallow roots. (2) This surface mulch would hold rain water at root level and prevent erosion. (3) It would prevent dust-bowl disasters by serving to anchor the topsoil against the winds. Rooting Habits of Plants "Tf we are going to examine Mr. Faulkner’s arguments, we must become acquainted first of all with the rooting habits of common crop plants. "In our Soils Building on the University of Wisconsin campus, there is a large glass case containing uprooted plants at various stage of growth. Oats, corn, clover and other plants were carefully dug out by a special technique, leaving all of their roots intact, and placed in this case some 50 years ago by Professor F. H. King. Many of the roots of these plants extend to a depth of two or three feet, and some much deeper. Less than one-fourth of the total mass of the roots is found in the three-inch surface layer where Faulkner contends that the great bulk exists. "Investigations throughout the world regarding the root development of crop plants have confirmed King’s findings. Anyone who wishes to investigate root development for himself must remove the soil slowly and very carefully-pre-ferably by a special technique, using water under pressure. When a plant is pulled up, most of the roots (and all the deep ones) usually remain in the soil, which accounts, in part, for the misconception concerning their length. The "Blotter" Theory Attacked "Actually, there is little basis for Mr. Faulkner’s contention that ploughedunder organic matter acts as a blotter and steals needed moisture from the roots of growing crops. Calculation based on precise information shows that if 40 toms per acre of manure were ploughed under, this manure in itself could hold only about one-tenth of an inch of water, that is, one-tenth inch of rainfall; and much of this water would be available to nourish plant growth just as is water held by the soil proper.

"Careful investigations have also shown that the capillary rise of water in soils is always rather slow. That is one reason why some plants, like corn, have developed the habit of going after the subsoil water by means of deep roots. Most crop plants go after the water rather than waiting for the water to come to the roots near the surface, If they did not, they would dry up in midsummer like bluegrass. "As a matter of fact, it is fortunate that water does not rise too rapidly in soils by capillary movement (similar to the movement of oil up a lamp wick to the flame), for the top soil becomes sO warm and the air movement at the surface is so rapid that evaporation and loss of water would be extremely serious. Owing to the slow water movement, however, the evaporation’ during warm weather runs ahead of the capillary rise, and as a result, a two to threeinch layer of very dry soil is formed near the surface. This layer of dry soil acts in two important respects: (1) Since it is very dry, it fails to function efficiently in bringing water to the very surface where it would be lost rapidly because of active air movement and relatively high temperatures. (2) It serves as a good insulator for preventing the water underneath from becoming so warm that it would vaporise and escape right through the layer of soil. "Thus the layer of soil in which Faulkner proposes we do our farming must be dry much of the time so that it may serve as an insulator for the soil below, where plants obtain most of their water and nutrients. And since crop plants obtain most of their nutrients below the surface layer, the farmer must plough to place manure and crop residues where it is moist, so that they’ can function most advantageously, Three More Reasons "Faulkner says that in all of his§ experiences no one has ever advanced a scientific reason for ploughing. I have just given one. Briefly, here are three more: (continued on next page)

Farmer Scrap That Plough!

(continued from previous page) 1. Ploughing, because of the special shape of the mouldboard, produces a shearing action in three directions on the thick layer of soil that is lifted and turned. As a result, the turned soil layer is pulverised, and thus a more satisfactory seed bed is possible than with an implement that turns shallow layers. 2. Ploughing also helps to improve and rejuvenate soils by bringing the deeper layers from time to time near the surface, where the desirable processes of aeration, oxidation and alternate freezing and thawing are more active. 3. And by ploughing under organic matter it is possible to maintain an active soil layer deep enough to provide satisfactory conditions for crop plants. "Of course you will say the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Do field tests actually show ploughing to be superior to other methods of cultivation? Experiments conducted by the ‘Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station, in which surface tillage was

compared with ploughing, gave the following results: on a heavy _ soil, wheat yielded 32 per cent more with plough-

ing than with surface tillage; and similarly, on a light soil, the yield of corn was 16 per cent greater. Results of other experiments showing the superiority of ploughing could be cited. In his so-called research Faulkner did not compare the two tillage operations; he simply grew crops with surface tillage and then concluded that his method was better than ploughing. For the most part, he does not even tell us the yields he obtained, Nature’s Cropping Scheme "The author of Plowman’s Folly made an error when he connected Nature’s bountiful yields and towering trees with his no-fertiliser theory. In Nature’s cropping scheme there is no removal of plant growth with accompanying soil elements, as there is in man’s programme of food production. Man harvests and carries away the corn and wheat, rich in fertility elements; but Nature’s crops are left to die, rot, and add to the fertility of the soil. This cycle is repeated year by year, and gradually insoluble soil minerals are changed over to more soluble or usable products. "If Nature’s soil could, by itself, nurtfre a nation of 130,000,000, all soil and crop specialists would be without jobs, for all the farmers would have tv do would be to sow and reap. However, the constant harvesting of crops gives to us as food the nutrients which Nature would normally return to the soil. Therefore we cultivate the land and give back in the form of fertiliser the nutrients we have removed in crop form. "Farmers now know that land which is in pasture continuously, and is never ploughed, gradually deteriorates in fertility. Like all harvesting, the pasturing ' of cattle removes nutrients from the soil. It is not ploughing, but the removal of vegetation, that causes depletion; if no vegetation is removed, the soil retains its fertility. That is the A B C of agriculture. Egyptians and Chinese "Another point. which Faulkner uses in haphazard connection with his nofertiliser theory is the Egyptians cultivation by hoe of the Nile Valley, The Egyptians harvest good yields, and Faulkner reasons that inasmuch as they neither plough nor add fertiliser to the Nile loam, their abundant crops are proof of his contentions. Of course the Egyptians don’t use the mouldboard plough. Each year the Nile overflows and deposits a layer of rich silt on their bottom land, supplying all the necessary mineral nutrients but no nitrogen fertiliser, which, contrary to Faulkner’s beliefs, is applied annually in the form of Chilean nitrate, The cheap labour makes possible hand-hoeing of the crops, and not a weed survives. Because of the lack of rain, and the type of (continued on next page)

o-_e_----(continued from previous page) agriculture practiced, sod or grass crops are not grown, and hence there is little occasion to plough under organic matter. "And then there is the myth concerning the fertility of Oriental soil. Surely if Mr. Faulkner plans to restore ‘our birthright of virile health’ by junking the plough, he should not point to the Orientals as successful advocates of his theory. A large portion of the Chinese population suffers from malnutrition due to an exhausted soil, much of which they have hand-cultivated, rather than ploughed, for centuries. And the primitive agriculture of India produces an average yield of only five to six bushels of wheat an acre."