Campbell's 1902 soil culture manual

Front matter

...1902...

Soil Culture

Manual.

Introduction

Having been convinced by years of constant labor in the field, and practical results attained by soil culture experiments, that the average farm crops throughout the west are not what they might be if proper cultivation was applied; and realizing what it would signify to the grfeat Semi-Arid Belt if every farmer in that section could grasp the fundamental principles involved in the science of soil culture, which are really plain and simple, and put them into practical use, I have been prompted to prepare the matter contained in these pages.

I desire, if it may be possible for me to do so, to in some measure supply the rapidly growing demand for a broader and more comprehensive knowledge of soil culture and the storage and conservation of the available soil waters for the increase of crops, and the greater profit thereby to the farmer; also to aid and encourage public sentiment in favor of farm life and ideal farm homes.

I believe one of the important sentiments as respects home life on the farm is the abolishment of the " Bonanza " farm idea. The small farmer has given character to agriculture everywhere and at all times. He cultivates a smaller area, produces a greater diversity of crops and practices a more intensive system of cultivation. His farm is his home, which he wishes constantly to improve by the growing of trees, fruit, flowers and shrubs. He has a better conception of economy; his wife and children are happier and better contented; in short, it is upon the comparatively small farms that many a bright young man and woman have found opportunities to develop a capacity for the higher and nobler duties and service of life.

Make the farm as comfortable and attractive as possible, and the children will love it as their home, and will feel a deeper respect for their parents, and will more fully appreciate nature in all her fruitfulness and glory.

The " Bonanza," or large scale system of farming, reverses all this; for in that case the home is not a home, but merely a place where the family stay. It is seldom beautified by trees or flowers; it is unattractive, and the very atmosphere of such a place»will depress the mind of the true agriculturalist. Such a system is always barren of what is pleasing to the eye, and to the mind, and is generally a system of soil butchery.

Under the " Bonanza " system, two acres are required to do less than one should do, and, as a rule, everything is in a state of congestion; strenuous activity abounds with, generally, unsatisfactory results. Little time is given to moral, mental, or physical culture, to the school or the churchy or the growth of religious sentiment in the community, and to the broader educational work, such as the "Farmers' Institute;" and the general effect of this stunted condition is to retard the development and improvement of agriculture and the people who follow it.

It is not intended to lay down in this volume a code of imperative rules to govern the farmer in every act of soil culture, but rather by explanatory illustrations to present as clearly and plainly as possible the fundamental principles which govern the movement of moisture in the soil, the development of plant life, and the quantity and quality of the crop. After these general principles have been grasped and understood, the necessary labor in detail required to make agriculture profitable becomes clear and easy to anyone who will give these pages a careful perusal.

There cannot be laid down any rule by which to be guided in the cultivation of the soil under all conditions. Soil that is too wet, naturally, must be drained, while soil that is too dry by reason of insufficient rainfall, or by reason of the fact that the rainfall in any section is not distributed seasonably, is unfavorable to the production of any crops, but in the great semi-arid area of our western country we believe a general rule may be applied, and if followed diligently the resulting storage and conservation of the natural rainfall in the soil will produce, in average years, as good crops of cereals, and of all the vegetables that are commonly grown, as can be produced in the humid central portions of the United States.

Storage and conservation of the rain waters is the basis of all this fruitful production. Has the reader not observed instances where a heavy snow drift has, by reason of some obstruction in the wind's course, lodged in a field, and where the snow was drifted the crop in the following summer was better ? The usual conclusion has been that the snow drift protected the grain sown in the soil like a blanket, and the greater yield the following season was attributed to such protection; but this is an error. The reason of a greater crop on the ground so covered with the snow was that the snow melted gradually in the spring time and percolated into the soil at a much greater depth, and was stored, as in a reservoir, and, later, when the hot period and drought of summer came, supplied the roots of the plants with moisture and kept the plants growing when the plants in other parts of the field not so supplied were checked, and perhaps withered.

By that almost unexplainable movement of the moisture in the soil upwards towards the surface, under a natural law which is called capillary attraction, the roots of the growing plants on the spot where the snow had drifted were supplied from the res ^rvoir of water below, which had come down into the lower strata of the soil as the snow in the drift had melted.

We have endeavored to show that by storage and conservation of the rain waters in this way, so as to save them for plant nourishment and growth in the summer period, like results and yields may be obtained on large fields, as have been observed on small patches of ground that happened to be covered by snow drifts. It follows, then, that the greater amount of water we can store in the soil previous to the planting of the crops, as well as during their growth, and the greater care we use in the cultivation of the surface of the ground, so as to retain and economize the moisture so conserved, the greater must be the yield at harvest time.

In connection with this fact there is another of no less importance, viz: the soil should be prepared as perfectly as possible to insure a prolific growth of roots. It is not uncommon that a single hour's extreme condition of the soil, as respects rapid evaporation, will reduce the crop one-half. If we can store and conserve in the soil a sufficient quantity of the natural rain waters and make them available during the growing season, and have coupled with the moisture a sufficient growth of roots to sustain and nourish the plants, a good crop is sure to be realized.

We are well aware it is difficult to explain what is the exactly proper physical condition of the soil for the best results in growing crops. It is important to learn how to apply the most economical mechanical work to secure such results. There are many little things and minor points to be done and observed that have a- direct influence and effect in securing this condition, and many more that bear on the question as to how to maintain this good condition of the soil during the growing season, that have not been considered in the past, but which are vital and necessary to the best possible crop yields.

With these considerations fully in mind, we have tried, in the following pages, to be clear in our statements and illustrations respecting all these little points and duties we owe to the cultivation of the soil, and to make plain to the reader an explanation of our past work and the results of our years of experience and experiments in the semi-arid west, a section which at a time, not far distant, we believe will be made by our system of soil culture, to yield an abundance, and will be the abode of millions of new settlers who will found homes there that shall be blessed with peace and plenty.

Campbell s 1902 Soil Cultuee M\>-ual.

THE SEMI-ARID BELT.

ITS GREAT RESOURCES AND ADVANTAGES.

That vast country known as the Semi -Arid Belt, extending fron: Canada, on the north, well into Texas, and from the Rocky Mountains to the Missouri River, and across that river, easterly, through the Dakotas and into western Minnesota, began to receive its first settlement in consider able numbers about twenty-five years ago.

The experiences of the people who have lived in that country of great prairies during this period have been varied in the extreme. They have had years of partial and years of total failures, and interspersed along with occasional years of good crops. Alternate hope and despair have filled the •settlers" mind>. Had it not been for the cows and chickens and the small garden with the windmill as an irrigator, and the stockraising industry . much of that great section would long ago have been largely depopulated and abandoned as an agricultural countrj-.

Up to 1894 very little attention had been given to the question as to how the soil of that section might be treated to insure crop>s, and the old method of farming was pursued, with the usually attendant disappointment.

The press driU and other tools were introduced as having the required merits for overcoming the drought; irrigation was talked of and in some instances tried: summer fallowing was tried without any material change in crop results.

The *'Rain Maker " came, and with boastful confidence in his powers attempted to perform miracles, and failed.

Trees and orchards by the thousands were planted all over that country, only to be cut down by the hot winds and the long periods of mid-summer drought. During this time agriculturical colleges were established in these states, but the conditions as respects both the climate and soil formations were all new. and it was first necessary for the professors to study and experiment to ascertain what might be done and how to do it to overcome what appeared to be insurmountable difficulties.

Not until the subject of the storage and conservation of the natural rainfall in the .soil began to be comprehended did any real light or hope for the successful solurion of this hard problem come to us.

The development of our investigations, pursued along this line of thougnt and theory, has at last brought us to the one significant conclusion, namely, that the storage and conservation of the rainfall in the soil by our method of cultivation is the only means of saving that great section and making it bloom and prosper.

THE FOMEROY MODEL FARM.

ITS MISSION.

_ The Pomeroy Model Farm was established at Hill City, in Graham County, Kansas, in March, 1900, for the sole purpose of demonstrating what might be accomplished in a section of the Semi-Arid Belt under the so-called " Campbell Method of Soil Culture." For three or four years considerable effort had been made by the railroads in the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas to encourage better cultivation along their lines by •establishing what was then called Experimental Farms. Arrangements were made with individual farmers in various localities, sixteen in all, in 1896, and upwards of forty in 1897, a much less number in 1898, and in the fall of that year we refused to proceed further *on this plan, as a general supervision of all this work was left to us. From the work done a fair amount of good results were secured so far as the public at large were concerned; but, personally, we obtained much valuable information and made a great deal of progress in our discoveries in soil culture.

In the first place it seemed entirely out of the question with our occasional visits for the average operator of these experimental farms to grasp the principles and rules of the system. It was not uncommon for us to find the man in charge very busy with his own private work, consequently his mind and attention were not given to the necessary points in the work on the experimental plat. He was ia a hurry, and sometimes seemed a little anxious for us to move on.

In the next place, there w^as an expectation of too much from the first year's cultivation. While the great amount of work done created general interest, and considerable curiosity as to what might result from it, the special interest was not what it would have been had the work been more thorough and confined to a less number of stations.

At the Pomeroy Model Farm no other kind of work has been attempted est ept to grow crops, trees, shrubbery, and orchards under the Campbell method, and due attention has been given to the proper preparation of the soil, and the storing and conserving in the soil the natural rainfall. One of the important discoveries we are now making and are working out, and happily with great satisfaction and remarkable results, is the effect and value of summer cultivation, which aids so materially to store and conserve the rain waters during the entire season, preparing the seed bed for the sowing of grain in the fall or planting in the following spring. So far, ot ly winter wheat has been grown on soil thus treated, and the yield obtained in 1901 was fully three hundred per cent, more than the yield of adjoining farms cultivated by the usual method of farming. In 1902^ other crops will be grown on ground thus treated.

The general plan of our cultivation on the Pomeroy Model Farm is exactly as explained in the different chapters of this volume. Many new and important experiments will be worked out there during the coming season, which we are sure will add greatly to the discoveries and knowledge already made and obtained on this invaluable subject.

The illustrations shown in cuts Nos. 14, 15 and 16 very clearly demonstrate the value of our plan of growing and developing trees. We have laid out with considerable care a part of the farm for buildings, setting apart a parcel of land for a garden and small fruits, with the orchard in the rear; the object being to create here an ideal farm home.

To our mind, there is nothing that means more to all of us as a neighborhood, county, state or nation than the increasing improvement of our farm homes, and making them attractive and pleasant. The influences that go out from such homes for good are felt in many ways. In the attractiveness of the farm home for the wife and children, there is found the primal creation and nurture of the most valuable mental gifts, and the dearest affections. In the orchards, and the shade trees, and in the flowers and shrubs that adorn a home are to be found the objects to which the heart is attached with more tenacity and tenderness than the domain of lands

In our experience thus far, it is clear that in five years time one may grow up shade and ornamental trees, as well as fruit trees, to such an extent as to yield beauty, comfort and profit, which largely embody all the factors that are required to make the ideal farm home. Consider for a moment that the bh ak prairie may be transformed into ideal farm homes in the short space of five years. Nothing can add more to the wealth of the country and the value of our farm lands than such improvements created generally over our western prairies. We have in mind an instance in the early settlement of Eastern Nebraska which was related to us by one of the parties coni erned, that illustrates the love of the average man for tret s. A man from Ohio with a reasonable amount of means had come to Nebraska to buy a farm. He was offered one with good buildings and other improvements, Excepting there was no orchard or shade trees. The price asked was $15.00 per acre, but he purchased the farm adjoining, on which there were no better buildings, and the land was of precisely the same character, but with an orchard of five acres and a liberal number of shade and ornamental trees around the buildings of about eight years' growth, and the purchaser paid just twice the price of the other farm — paying, as you observe, as mu< h for the fruit and shade trees as he paid for the land and all the other improvements. This may have been an extreme case, but it shows quite clearly how dominant is the love in all of us for such adornments of the hom.e as nature gives us in beautiful trees.