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If we paid any attention to it, we should plant in the dark of the moon, so as to get the plants up so that they could use the little more light which the moon gives. It is, however, more important to have the soil right than the moon. Part IV. Soils, Fertilizers and Irrigation What is Intensive Cultivation? From whom can I receive instruction or information regarding intensive cultivation?
And yet it is from the ranks of these sturdy sons of toil that I would gain my recruits for that peaceful army whose sword is the pruning-hook; it is from their honest, hard-working hands I expect the grandest results. He who has already wealth enough at command can of course afford to raise grapes with bone-dust, ashes, and all the fertilizers.
This created their wealth and made possible their great public works. All accounts of the country at the time of the Conquest agree in the statement that they cultivated the soil in a very admirable way and with remarkable success, using aqueducts for irrigation, and employing guano as one of their most important fertilizers.
Fine results, if not the best, can be secured. In this case there is scarcely any possibility for a thorough preparation of the soil from the start. It can gradually be improved, however, by making good its deficiencies, the chief of which is the lack of vegetable mould. The soil is already too light and warm, and it should be our aim to apply fertilizers tending to counteract this defect.
The farmers of the East are trying to establish it, but meet with difficulty chiefly for want of the special bacteria which should be found on the roots. The function of these bacteria is to gather the nitrogen of the air and supply it as plant food. Without the bacteria the plant can get only the nitrogen which is supplied from the soil in fertilizers.
The principal crop is the bitter white potato, which, after being frozen and dried, becomes the insipid chuño, chief reliance of the poorer families. The Inca system of bringing guano from the islands of the Pacific coast has long since been abandoned. There is no money to pay for modern fertilizers. Consequently, crops are poor.
Near the upper Hiawassee is a cave where a pile of human skulls was found by a man who had put up his cabin near the entrance. For some reason, which he says he never understood, this farmer gathered up the old, bleached bones and dumped them into his shed. Quite possibly he did not dare to confess that he wanted them for fertilizers or to burn them for his poultry.
A third of the land stood idle every year; it often took a whole day merely to scratch the surface of a single acre with the rude wooden plow then in use; cattle were killed off in the autumn for want of good hay; fertilizers were only crudely applied, if at all; many a humble peasant was content if his bushel of seed brought him three bushels of grain, and was proud if his fatted ox weighed over four hundred pounds, though a modern farmer would grumble at results three or four times as good.
Factory refuse, instead of being allowed to pollute the waters, should be turned to good use by extracting the chemicals, which form valuable by-products. All farm waste should be taken to a remote part of the farm, placed in an open shed or vat with cement floor and screened from flies to form a compost heap for fertilizers for the farm.
"If you could make stable manure enough to cover the cleared acres a foot deep, you could raise almost any crop you might name and make money by it. The land is impoverished by the use of commercial fertilizers, unbalanced by humus." "Well, I guess You know, Hiram," admitted Mrs. Atterson. "And that calf certainly is a pretty creeter. It would be too bad to turn it into veal."
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