Show the plow Is NOT the enemy of the farmer r m e r says a noted agronomist who replies e ae p i i S to that charge in a recently published h book fk by ELMO SCOTT WATSON ji te by via tern union til THE plow the arch villain IS in the tragedy of soil erosion t that it t costs american agriculture t ore two billion dollars a year through t the 1 loss alss of prec precious outs nitrogen nia ma p phosphorus h hos p it r a and potash from erom the nations or is it one 0 e of man kinds traditional benefactors be 9 will the plow eventually ay iy become b an obsolete eddme implement im ta and n a museum piece or will it continue to be one of far main americans especially farmers who have learned to revere the plow and who isho read the book plow mans folly written by ed edward ward H faulkner and published recently e attly by the university of oklahoma press or who saw articles I 1 in the a pers based upon that book no dint doubt b t were startled when nhen mr fu faulkner u told them that the plow w was a a an e enemy y rather than a friend of agn culture amit ure but the old saying about there theme being two sides to every question has proved true again for fee no ess can an authority than dr william A albrecht head of the soils department part ment of the university of M missouri la now comes forward to defend the plow and to offer a rebuttal to mr Faulk ners charges against it dr albrecht both agrees and dis din agrees agree with the author of nf plow mans folly he acknowledges that farmers farmer in the slit silt loam soil areas of the united united states stales have in the past plowed to too much As an a result the heavy ey in these regions regins has washed way away priceless soil but of the question to plow or not to plow cannot be answered yes a or no nor is it safe to make hasty hi as generalizations in any other respect I 1 while dealing with this subject the crux cimis of the whole question lies hica in the soil sod and climatic conditions of 0 if the geographical region involved we need to plow less on some soils soil and convers conversely elv we need to t plow more and desper deeper on cut others in assets asserts dr be albrecht ate e need to learn that the differences feren ces in degree of soil sod development according to climatic differences feren ces are factors in an determining how important afie a plow is in Plow mans folly mr faulkner ner charged that the moldboard mo laboard plow now w in use on farms throughout the civilized thred world is the least satisfactory aleast implement for the e tion of the land for the production of crops the truth is that no one me has ever advanced a scientific reason for plowing moreover he says that the plow is responsible for all the erosion th the e sour sn soils the me mounting floods the this lowering water ter tables the van shing wild wid lifto life the compact and impervious S soil 11 so surfaces that have harassed american farmers for a generation and add there them the university of missouri it scientist disagrees ile he holds that even though the average farmer can I 1 give a scientific answer to the boc question why the men of science can provide plenty of valid va hill reasons for doing so high on his list jud of reasons as is as the file fact that this practice supplies the soil with oxy gen which helps transform its chem ical components into usable plant food for growing c crops aps cps aerating the soil A any n y microbiologist will I 1 it bif testify that pl plowing W aerates the soil he be y says As a consequence of f the cluing change n of atmosphere in the soil and be because c ause of the stirring by the mold board plow there us is rese new life soil is a factory in which energy I 1 is a expended tons ton of carbon are beag b edg burned to form carbon it dioxide bece d sulphur is oxidized cared into sul sid P hue dioxide dioxide ammonia is changed to nitrate other similar are e tak taking on g place A 40 acre corn field under order maxi main mum mours growing activity in july burns bums an amount of carbon equal to to tie coal used in rudow running g a 40 horsepower steam is m engine rg me in order to form carbon b dioxide can any anyone e deny the necessity of air for such is a perform ancee once surely no one would close the draft by refusing to plow and thus destroy such crop producing power this burning business in the soil by means 0 of f oxygen from the air must go on it if the punt plant nutrients tied up in chemical combination corn tons 0 wi with th car carbon b on are to be released bof for on gege repeated ledri use er batti by other parts that follow w were e fit this performance not proceeding in the soil 1 I life on the globe would stion soon become extinct the th e sm seal I 1 a productive production power would soon on be e expended As a result the I 1 s je 1 e I 1 0 e it W 4 kw plowing scenes such as this will not soon vanish from the american scene says a noted agronomist who refutes the charges in a recently published Is book 0 ok that the plow is 19 the enemy of agriculture soil could offer nothing and no growth could occur plowing has the further scientific value of helping the soil supply a larger isrow amount of soluble nitrogen for growing crops than would otherwise be available according to or dr albrecht studies of the nitrate sup ply in soil planted to corn forcefully support this finding tests were made on three adjoining plots planted to corn one plot was unplowed the second was plowed th the third was both plowed and cultivated the soluble nitrogen supply in the pl plot t that was pl plowed bcd and cultivated w was at least 30 per er cent greater than in the unplowed tract in the plowed tract it was between 25 and 30 per cent greater crop yields correspond to the level of these our nitrate ate supplies s says ays dr albrecht brecht Ai T the h a farmer ma may not know that these higher levels of of nitrate are responsible for his improved crop yield nor may he understand that they are the result of his making the soil turn turtle with his plow he simply plows ahead of the corn to get a better crop his I 1 inability ability to point out the underlying mile if scientific channels channel through which the effects of plowing are transmuted transmitted to the crop does not put the plow into bad repute in his eyes surely the hundreds of thousands of corn producers will not suddenly discard so ancient an implement merely because they cannot call to 41 10 td V DR WILL WILLIAM AA A BRECHT ALBRECHT their aid scientific evidence when someone concludes for them that the plow is the cause of increased erosion ro and other devastation that tat is so easily associated with it V villains I 1 ilams of 0 erosion to mr M r Faulk ners char charge ge that plowing is solely responsible for far ero em sion dr albrecht counters with the assertion that the real vil villains gillium lium are continuous cropping and the steady removal of plant food elements year after year without any Y effort to replenish lenish the soil ain s resources ce of nitrogen ge phosphorus P hosp horus and potash it t is s true that plowing pit 0 wing and crop ping a soil year after year bring with them declining crop yields he says I 1 for these one might readily pounce upon the plow as the culprit in the case but the fact is that delim declining ng crop yields have other causes than merely the plowing operation they cannot be explained a away oo 00 ay by the simple belief that the explosive separation of the soil mass wrecks oil all capillary connections temporarily and that the organic matter sandwiched in further ex tends the period of sterility of the soil due to dryness crops crop are not net declining 0 or failing because plowing out is drying out the soil the forces that turn plowed land into bare eroded fields are e not the mold board plow and the th rh horses 0 anes or tractor that pull it they are the continued removal of soil fertility with little or no return of needed plant foods plowing is not the cause of the depletion of the fertility supply depletion occurs because of theli the ferb fertility lity removed when the crop is hauled au ed off to market the plow I 1 is not of the ePo exploiter tc r rather it is the fit farmer mener the plow is in merely the toot that facilitates his exploitation at a faster rate and over more acres than before the plow was given turn him the p plow 1 oty has helped him feed many of us too too far removed from the land to apprent appreciate te its exploit atu in urging that the plow be junked bunked as an agricultural implement mr faulkner s book advocated the use of the disc harrow borrow a as a means mean of producing more and better crops because it would incorporate crop re residues idars green manures and organ ic matter into the top soil to this suggestion dr albrecht had the his foli lowing to say the author of plowman a folly condemns the plow because it inverts completely the upper portion tum of the poe soil profile in its pa place how however e e r he advocates the use of the disk harrow barrow which carries out a similar pr process icess differing only in degree to mr Faulk ners contention that i mp crop residues or organic matter from plants allowed to grow of flu their own accord should be incorporated into the top soil without the addition of manure lime or other fertilizer dr albrecht replies such a proposal does not take into account differences in vegetation in type pe or Q quality a y weeds s or lo 10 y ant we Z forest ce at t trees r e es as ancient n t as the he se quota or are a t taken aken on a par in the Plow mans folly thesis with leg unnes umes as soil rejuvenating agencies 1 ahe I he author cites every worried wooded country as a perfect example of so soil dun maintenance int enarce b but ut neglects to in mention the low level of fc fertility ruh ty and the difficulty involved I 1 in n maintain mg ing life mr Faulk ners belef that the prevalence re valence of wild life on the wt west e ern plains plain was due to the he Is fact t that h come this his region was unplowed comes in for some critical analysis also dr dor albrecht albrech wooded points out that the un plowed wooded areas of new erg england which our puritan ancestors first settled supported only a few wild turkeys and squirrels six in further refutation of the con on in plowman s folly that principles chic which ch are valid in the forest are valid in an the field dr albrecht asserts in view of the fact that the soils differ as widely as they do under I 1 I 1 forest rest and under prairie we surely cannot subscribe to the belief that thai is all principles valid for the forest are valid for the fields summarizing arising his views on the en tore tire subject dr albrecht con com eludes the indictment of the plow pam by the book plowman a folly wil not stand against the facts of so set ence nor the lodgment judgment of expert encee farmers this publication wil wi fall fail far short of helping us to realia that the garden of eden almos line s literally lies under order our feet almos him anywhere on earth we care to step provided we allow vegetation t grow and we cling cang to the disk haprov on as a means of turning it under rath er than to the mold board plow |