OCR Text |
Show To Get Bigger, Finer Crops,Farmers Should Toss Their Plows on Junkpile, Says Expert $ This pretty girl seems to be heeding the ancient an-cient injunction, "Venerate "Ven-erate the plow," as she examines what has been preserved of one of the first three plows made by John Deere, the Yankee blacksmith who invented the first successful steel plow in 1837. , , This pretty girl seems to be heeding the an- j. ' cient injunction, "Ven- A ? , e - erate the plow," as she examines what has j "t, :.. been preserved of one -f , of the first three plows j made by John Deere, j, Vsr sr :1v" ' the Yankee blacksmith j J"iis' -.Wlb who invented the first -!' v '' ' r'; successful steel plow in I. :F: :. ' 1837. ' I i ? I . 1 - . rx ; !t ; : --r.j 'EE:S.;S;'it.5l' ' .'I - ' , 1 By ELMO SCOTT WATSON Released by Western Newspaper Union. THOMAS GRAY, the famous fa-mous English poet, has made immortal the plowman who "homeward plods his weary way" and for two centuries cen-turies the plowman and his plow have been the theme of song and story, building up the idea that they are the benefactors bene-factors of mankind. In fact, "Venerate the plow" was the motto engraved upon the medals med-als offered by the Agricultural Agricul-tural Society of Philadelphia early in the Nineteenth century cen-tury to stimulate agricultural experimentation, and more than a dozen of our states have the plow as one of the symbols in their great seals. In the face of this tradition it may come as a shock to most Americans to be told that instead of venerating the plow, we should look upon it as an enemy of agriculture and the tool that is responsible responsi-ble for "all of the erosion, the the top soil (which, as everybody recognizes, is the really good soil) just as Mother Nature does it in a forest or a meadow. Disk Harrow Better. "We have developed some useless theories in that field," declares Mr. Faulkner. ''Men have come to feel, for example, that centuries are necessary nec-essary for the development of a productive pro-ductive soil. The satisfying truth is that man with a team or a tractor and a good disk harrow can mix into the soil, in a matter of hours, sufficient organic material to accomplish ac-complish results equal to what is accomplished by nature in decades." In fact, it is the disk harrow, rather than the plow, which should be the' farmer's principal instrument in producing pro-ducing more and better crops. Here is why: The organic matter disked into the top of the soil not only decomposes and adds to the fertility of the soil, but acts as a sponge to hold moisture where it is needed. Faulkner believes be-lieves there is a capillary movement of water upward from the subsoil. When the surface of the soil contains organic matter, this top layer not only holds water, but is able to receive re-ceive it from below. Conversely, when the soil has been plowed, the loose layer at the surface loses its capillarity while the layer of green manure plowed under actually insulates insu-lates the upper surface of soil from the subsoil. This "blotter" is often the reason why a crop shows lack of moisture when there is moisture in the subsoil. sub-soil. The crop has used all the moisture in the loose layer of top' soil but can get no more from below until the organic matter plowed under un-der has become completely decomposed decom-posed and packed. Although the author of "Plowman's "Plow-man's Folly" believes that the. disk harrow is the farm tool which should more and more replace the plow, he admits that it does have its limitations. limita-tions. It is difficult to handle on side hills and it won't work so well on stony soil. Nor is it the complete answer to the question of how to get rid of weeds. He concedes that there is no such thing as completely weed-less weed-less farming but he does believe that the system of farming which he advocates ad-vocates tends to get rid of weeds while the plow tends to encourage them. For every time land is plowed, seeds are buried for future sprouting. Then when it is plowed again some of the seeds are brought to the surface for growth, while more seeds are turned under to await their turn to sprout, and so on, ad infinitum. in-finitum. Under Faulkner's plan of using the disk harrow rather than the plow, the weeds are mixed up into the top soil and their seeds are never very far below the surface. When such seed grows into a plant and the plant is cut, then there is no reservoir of seed far under the surface to take its place. Gradually a field may get rid of weeds entirely, if they, are cut before they mature, although, of course, there will always al-ways be some weeds grown from seed that is blown or carried into the fields. Not a New Idea. But the problem of weed control is, after all, of lesser importance than the problem of -preparing the soil so that it will be more productive. produc-tive. In advocating his plan, Faulkner Faulk-ner does not claim that it is new. "No new technical discoveries are to be aired here," he says in his first chapter. "The discussion is concerned con-cerned wholly with reducing to practical prac-tical terms, employable in any body's backyard or on any farm, the scientific information possessed for decades but hitherto not put to any extensive use." Moreover, he does not just advocate advo-cate a theory but he cites his own experience to prove that his theory is practicable. For example, there was the way he demonstrated its validity with the tomatoes which he transplanted, even though he shocked some of his neighbors with what they considered his "careless methods." First he harrowed down a crop of rye that had grown three feet tall, mixing rye and soil until hardly a trace of vegetation remained. Then he marked the land off in rows, using an instrument he designed himself to pack the worked soil of the rows firmly. This was done to patch the soil back together so nature's capillary action carried on by the plant root system could keep on elevating moisture to the surface for his tomatoes. He cleaned all the dirt from the roots of his tomato plants and laid them along the rows on the surface. He covered the roots with rich soil and packed it down by foot. By late afternoon every plant set In the forenoon was pointing toward the sky and "by the following morning morn-ing every plant without exception was standing upright." No water was used in transplanting, and that was sufficient evidence that nature's own watering system was at work. Prize Tomatoes. Not only did the tomatoes live, but his neighbors who had been dubious du-bious of his "careless" methods had to admit that his was "the finest field of tomatoes in the neighborhood." neighbor-hood." There was further proof of the fact when he sold his tomatoes, for he received as much as 25 cents a peck above the top price in the Cleveland market. "One reason for this was the exceptional weight of my packed pecks," Mr. Faulkner explains. "Fifteen pounds is the standard weight of a peck of tomatoes. to-matoes. It was not unusual for a peck of my tomatoes to weigh 16 pounds and many weighed 17. Most local tomatoes that year weighed from 10 to 14 pounds to the peck." What the author of "Plowman's Folly" did with tomatoes, he also did with sweet potatoes, cucumbers cucum-bers and beans. And lest it be thought that his methods apply only to "garden truck," let it be recorded that they apply also to field grain. Several years ago he began "nudging" "nudg-ing" the United States department of agriculture to experiment with his theory of "surface-incorporation." Finally one of the leading agronomists agrono-mists of the department set up a demonstration. "Perhaps the intent was to disprove dis-prove my theories," writes Mr. Faulkner. "On the contrary, the outcome of the tests completely confirmed con-firmed them . . . The results of this official experiment proved that, by working organic matter into the surface instead of plowing it in, the resulting grain yield could be as much as 50 per cent greater. The very first year of this trial showed such a result." And these are only a few of the illuminating il-luminating facts to be found in the 161 pages of "Plowman's Folly." But they all lend emphasis to its author's contention that "the sooner we make ancient history of many of our present pres-ent farm practices, the earlier we will realize that the Garden of Eden, almost literally, lies under our feet almost anywhere on the earth we care to step. We have not begun to tap the actual potentialities of the soil for producing crops." sour soils, the mounting floods, the lowering water table, the vanishing wild life, the compact com-pact and impervious soil surface" sur-face" which have bedevilled the American farmer in recent re-cent years. Yet that is exactly exact-ly what an agricultural expert ex-pert tells us in a new book. He is Edward H. Faulkner and his revolutionary idea is developed In the book "Plowman's Folly" published pub-lished recently by the University of Oklahoma Press. And lest it be thought that he is only a theorist, a "visionary" and a "book farmer," let it be added immediately that he is the son of a successful farmer, that he was trained in agriculture at Williamsburg Baptist institute (now Cumberland college) and at the University of Kentucky, that he has been a county agent in Kentucky and Ohio, a Smith-Hughes teacher of agriculture and a soil and crop Investigator tin private employment. Moreover, he has carried on his experiments ex-periments -in garden plot and on a farm scale on land which he owns in Ohio and by his crop yields has translated theory into solid fact. At the beginning of "Plowman's Folly," Mr. Faulkner says that his book "sets out to show that the mold-board mold-board plow which is in use on farms throughout the civilized world, is the least satisfactory implement for the preparation of land for the production produc-tion of crops. This sounds like a paradox, perhaps, in view of the fact that for nearly a century there has been a science of agriculture, and that agricultural scientists almost to a man have used and approved the use of the moldboard plow. Nevertheless, Never-theless, the statement made above is true and capable of proof. Much of the proof, as a matter of fact, has come in left-handed manner from scientists themselves. The truth is that no one has ever advanced a scientific reason for plowing." He then proceeds to examine all the reasons that are given for plow-Eing plow-Eing and points out their inconsistencies inconsisten-cies and even absurdities. "Assuming "Assum-ing plowed land to be better for plant growth, we should find grass growing more freely on plowed land than on similar unplowed land near by," he points out. "Weeds, too, should show preference for plowed land. Volunteer growth should take over and develop more rankly after land had been plowed than before. Is this so? Observation is that, until un-til plowed land has subsided again to its former state of firmness, plants develop in it quite tardily, if at all. When dry weather follows the plowing, plow-ing, it may be weeks or even months before either natural vegetation or a planted crop will make normal growth. The fact is that 'bare' land, which notably erodes worse than soil in any other condition, consists almost al-most wholly of land that has been disturbed recently by plow or cultivating culti-vating implement. The only other bare land is that which has been denuded of top soil by erosion or other forces. There is significance . in the fact that erosion and runoff are worse on bare land, and that bare land is defined above." The effect which plowing has upon this top soil is the principal reason why the author of "Plowman's Folly" Fol-ly" considers this instrument an enemy, en-emy, rather than a benefactor of agriculture. In fact, the principal thesis of the book is that it is wrong to plow natural fertilizers deep into the soil and that this natural fertilizer fertiliz-er crop residue and green manure crops should be incorporated into |