Show erosion prevented by sound practice ice growing crops help in saving the soil by VV XV J DRYDEN the late spring floods and heavy rams rains made many farmers real ize that losses from water erosion can be serious michigan state col 2 C R lege specialists list four rules to re duce water erosion on farm land 1 never leave the ground bare longer than necessary vegetation Is important over the winter 2 As the slope of the land in creases use more crops of grass and small grains and fewer cultivate ed crops 3 if medium sloping land is cul practice strip cropping cross slope seeding and tilling and use sod waterways and terraces 4 keep the soil in as high a state of fertility as possible add lime m e where necessary use commercial i 1 fertilizers and add humus through natural manures green manures or crop residues soil building I 1 the difference between soil build ing and soil mining is shown in the chart below soil building means increasing the soil s organic matter and plant food supply and maintain ing high crop yields it means teed feed ing the soil and letting the soil feed the crops rather than trying to feed each individual crop the comparative results shown here were obtained at the ewing soil experiment field in illinois one plot has had no soil treatment since the field was established in 1910 the other plot has had large amounts of created WITH I 1 MANURE LIME PHOSPHATE I 1 NOT itt v m j caqaj ariar oca 47 4 aa oa s 2 0 5 NORE S OF 5 MATTE OF TONS ACRE LOST 0 M lime phosphate and potash to get heavy stands of deep rooted leg umes corn stalks have been re turned to this plot the rotation on both plots has been corn oats do clo ver and wheat crop yields covering a four year rotation tell the story corn pro on the fertilized plot was four tunes times greater than on the un treated field oats nearly four times and wheat about eight times great er clover yield on the fertilized plot was 19 1 9 tons per acre the un lin treated plot is too acid to grow legumes despite the greater amounts of nitrogen and organic matter used in producing the higher yields the fer utilized plot still contains 4 tons more organic matter and 4 pounds more nitrogen than the untreated field farm hints that pay in better products the cornell results are in line with earlier tests of vitamins for calf scours in michigan and ohio even though the use of vitamins lacks encouragement there is prom ise in another direction the sulfa drugs Sulta guanidine has been found helpful one of the taster faster acting sulfas which has been used against dysentery in hu h ILL mans also has been used success fully in calf scours treatment in tests a combination of with kaolin and pectin was more effective than either or alone dont don t use binder twine for tying fleeces use paper twine instead when binder twine I 1 it used pieces of the fiber break off and get into the wool these fail fall to take color when dyed who loses the sheep man scientists develop new slow fertilizer A new slow acting nitrogen ter fer which feeds alps over a long growing period has been developed by USDA soil scientists the new product a series of combinations of urea and formaldehyde is called uniform since both principal components are in short supply corn commercial mercial production will be small for a short time early reports from field and greenhouse have been very satisfactory |