Field lore for young farmers; a text-book for the graded schools

Front matter

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FAR

KATHARINE - ATHERTON - G

Foreword

The most healthful indication in present-day educational systems is the tendency to look toward Nature as the base of all essential culture. Nor is this a new phase. There were days when the natural world was made the foundation -for the most elaborate and delicate mythological and religious systems history knows — when "rays of twisted rain" were deemed fit weapons for a god, and heaven was a Grecian mountain. The world grew gradually out of this childhood, but always there remained with it a sense of the pulsating harmonies of nature. This became educationally submerged for a period in artificialities of more or less cultural value, but its undercurrent still ran powerfully beneath. It remained for the acumen of twentieth century science to find true balances, and to reread the pages of the physical world's great book with new insight. Greater than myth or fable, lovelier than the most graceful pagan imagery could delineate, truer than the most acute symbolism could represent are these new meanings of star and clod, of cloud and flower. And greater than all is the conception of life as a unit — a manifold interpretation of one universal vitality that from a single heart viii Foreword

sends its rich current through the veins of every living thing.

In this conception of Nature there is a buoyant grandeur that no statement of mere facts can possess. It is urged upon the teachers who shaU make use of the material in this little volume that its garment of detail shall be made to clothe this vital body of unified animation; that through all the lessons shall beat the pulse of the Universal Mother. With this hope it is sent out to make its fellowship among those who hear infinite voices in the whispering of winds and waters and the soft uprush of growing things.

Acknowledgment is made with grateful pleasure of the aid given by L. R. Neel, editor of the Southern Agriculturist, who read the first draft of the book and made many helpful suggestions; to Prof. H. A. Morgan, of the University of Tennessee, whose statements on some discussed points have been especially valuable; Rufus J. Nelson, editor of Farm and Ranch; David N. Barrow, editor of Progressive Farmer; President H. F. Estill, Sam Houston State Normal Institute; Professor S. C. Wilson, Department of Agriculture, Sam Houston Normal; Professor C. W. Davis, Department of Agriculture, North Texas State Normal;. Professor F. W. Katzmeier, Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College; and Professor W. K. Tate, Peabody College.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I Nature's Workshop i

II The Soil 7

Chapter II The Soil

Different Kinds of Soil. — When you become a workman in Natm-e's workshop the first thing you will need to understand will be the soil. There it is, spread out before you, of many kinds, dififering in color and quality. Here is a strip of yellowish sand, there a patch of black loam, and yonder a stretch of stiff, red or grayish clay. This hillside is rough and covered with stones; in the valley the ground is smooth as a carpet, with a beautiful, deep, soft, dark brown soil known as silt. You will notice, too, that the plants growing on the different soils vary greatly as to size, color and even kind. . It is plain

Stratification — to a Depth of Twenty Feet that the first thing you will need to know will be about the soil.

Beneath the Soil — What? — If you will dig down a little way you will find that the soil is arranged in laydarker ni color, but lighter in weight, than that below it. This top soil is usually but a few inches deep, while the subsoil ("suiy means "under") extends to a consideral)le depth before the rock is reached. If you go deep enough, however, you will be sure to find a rock bed underlying the finely divided earth particles that we call soil.

Earth's First Covering. — The fact is, that rock bed was at first the earth's outer surface. It took many thousands of years — yes, millions of them — to build this fine covering upon it. Until it was built, or at least started, there could not be any life, either of plants or animals. What a world it must have been — nothing but great, bare stretches of rock, or vast expanses of restless water; no trees, no grass, no birds, no animals; a world of loneliness and silence, except for the roar of the winds and the waves. You could not have lived in such a place, even if you had been there, for there was nothing to support life.

THE SOIL 9

Yet, desolate and unpromising as the world looked in those days, Nature took heart and went busily to work to make a world that people could live in. She had the sun, the water and the wind as helpers, and more than that, locked up in those forbidding walls of rock, were the seventy-odd elements. She knew what could be done with those elements if she had patience enough, and took time enough, to unchain their prison doors.

The Beginning of Soil Making. — First, Nature set the water to work to roughen up the hard, unyielding rock surfaces. We do not know how long that faithful servant had to work before any impression was made, but we know it was a long, long time. And it would have taken much longer but for other helpers that came along and went to work at the same task. These were multitudes of light, invisi])le particles, not seeds, yet with the same power of growth that seeds have. They were the "spores" of a strange, rootless plant called lichen. These spores were sticky, and when once they settled upon the rock they could neither be washed away by the water nor blown away by the wind.

Hozv Lichens Help. — You probal)ly have seen lichens many times, perhaps without knowing what they were. They are the grayish or greenish stain-like growths found on old tombstones or on bare stretches of rock. As larger, scale-like bodies you may see them on old walls or tree trunks. They lie flat against the surface where they grow, and are with difficulty pulled loose,

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M

Stone Lichen lo FIELD LORE FOR YOUNG FARMERS

even where they are large enough to get hold of. They look harmless enough, but nothing else will cause a surface to decay so quickly as \ ; .'/ , to let it become the prey of these strange plants. (iii;;^, \ , ^ , 7 The first lichens to ap-

pear on the bare rock surfaces were mere stains in appearance. They spread till they looked like patches of l)rown dust. By the help of the water these dull, stain-like bodies l)egan to dissolve the rock below them and in time a much larger growth of lichens appeared. These in turn died, making a very thin layer of dust as their remains mingled with the worn particles of rock.

Plants and TJicir Part in Soil-Making. — At last enough of this kind of soil was built up to give a foothold lo a few tiny seeds. After that the work went on a little faster, for every plant that grew and died furnished a little more soil for the plants that came after it. The roots helped, too, by thrusting themselves into every tiny crack and crevice, where they swelled as they grew, breaking off tiny flakes of rock and letting in the water and the air.

Other Helpers. — So, after ages and ages of time, the soil that we know was built, deep enough to support the giant forest trees and rich enough to furnish food for all the living things on all the earth. As time went on

THE SOIL

II other helpers appeared in the form of worms and animals, which, by l)urrowing down into the soil, helped to keep it loose and light enough for the growth of plants. It is hard to say to just which of these servants of Nature we owe the most, but as none of the rest could have

Gravel and Soil at the Foot of the Glacier

worked without its help we must probably thank the water for the greater part of the work of soil-making.

What Water Does Toward Soil-Building. — Water has many ways of working and is able to work under almost any conditions. It gets into the tiniest fissures and freezes there, breaking off pieces and even bursting great bodies of rock. It carries these fragments down the hills and across valleys, scraping and wearing and grinding them to powder. As ice, in the great glaciers of mountain regions, it imbeds great rocks thrown down from the mountain sides, holding them firmly as it proceeds on its slow, grim way to the plains, and breaking them into bits against the sides and bottom of its rocky bed. It even carries mammoth boulders from place to place, rounding and smoothing them by friction on the way. In many places may now be seen these giant rocks which scientists tell us were carried for long distances during the ''glacial period," an epoch of time before our history begins, during which most of northern and central North America was covered by an ice sheet. Since that time enough soil has formed on top of these boulders to support large trees.

Soil-Bnilding To-day. — So we can understand a little of how what was once solid rock came to be the fertile ground we know. Soil-building is still going on, much faster than it did in those early days because many more forces are at work at it. It is a wonderful work, and one in which we may well be proud to help.

1. Learn this quotation from Haskell:

"Time should never be counted by years, but by deeds,"

2. Questions to tbink about:

Why were the first trees much smaller than the ones coming later ?

THE SOIL 13

Why can none of the other soil-builders work without water?

Why is surface soil richer than subsoil?

How do common earthworms help in soil-building?

How does it happen that soils of different kinds may be found in the same field?

Name the different ways you think of in which water has helped in the work of soil-building.

Chapter III Plant Food What It Is And Where

IT COMES FROM

Hoiv Plant Food in the Soil Increases. — As the earth's covering became deep and soft vast quantities of material were stored away in it to be used as plant food. Each bit of rock that was turned to dust, each plant that died and decayed, each animal or insect whose dead body went back to earth, added a little to this store of nourishment. Even the rain as it fell gathered up certain elements from the air and brought them down to the ground to add to its richness.

Elements Necessary to Plant Grozvth. — We have learned that there are over seventy of the natural elements. Only about ten of these, however, are really necessary for plant growth. There are a few others that plants sometimes use, but these ten they must have or they will die.

Combustible and Non-Combustible Elements. — There are two classes of elements that make up plant food. If you will try an experiment with some grains of corn vou can see how these are divided. Select ten large kernels and weigh them carefully. Now burn them in some way so that you can save every particle of the

PLANT FOOD 15

ashes, and weigh the ashes. What has become of the rest of it? You will say that it has burned. It has not been destroyed, however, but has gone otT into the air as gas.

The part that thus escapes we call the combustible or burnable part. That which is left is called the non-combustible part. All the elements in the corn belong to one class or the other. The combustible part of a plant is about 95 per cent, of the dry part of it — that is, of all the elements in it except water. But as water makes up a large part of a growing plant the combustible portion of such a plant would not be nearly so great as that of dry grains.

Names of the Necessary Elements. — There are five of these elements which disappear into the air. They are: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and sulphur. There are five others which are left in the ashes ; phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium and iron. These ten things are what a plant must have to live and grow, and what it furnishes us, in other forms, for our food.

Hoiv the Plant Gets Its Food. — How does the plant manage to get all these elements together? It has only two sources from which to draw its food, the soil and the air. Through its stem and leaves it obtains its whole supply of carbon and a part of its oxygen and water from the atmosphere. All the rest comes from the soil and is taken up by the roots.

Why Plants Wither. — A plant can not use anything that is not in the form of either a gas or a Hquid. So before it can take its food from the soil the elements must be "in solution"; that is, well dissolved in water. That is the reason plants wither and die during a long dry season. Without water a plant must starve to death even in the midst of plenty of food. That is why there are no plants on the deserts. There is plenty of food there for them and whenever a little shower falls, as sometimes happens even on the desert, tiny green things spring up and grow rapidly until the hot sun dries them up.

Cake Making and Plant Making. — You have watched your mother make a cake, no doubt. She mixes a number of things, just so much of each, and when she has stirred them together and baked them you enjoy the product very much. You would not like so well to eat each part separately. Perhaps she can take the very same things and, by putting in more of one article and less of some other, turn out something very different from what she first made. That is the way the plant does with the ten elements it gets from the air and the soil. It combines them in all sorts of ways and when it is through with them it stores them up in its roots, its fruit, its leaves or its stem until it needs them for itself, or until they are taken to be used by man.

Substances Made by the Grooving Plants. — These are the most important of the substances which the plant forms by combining elements:

PLANT FOOD 17

Cellulose, the fibrous,- woody part of plants.

Starch, which forms a large part of potatoes, corn, wheat, etc.

Sugar, which is found in all plants, and which exists in large quantities in the sugar cane, the beet, all kinds of fruits and the sap of the maple tree.

Gum, a sticky substance, of which gum arabic is a good example.

Fat, a solid, greasy matter, most abundant in such seeds as those of the palm, myrtle and laurel.

Oil, a liquid fat, such as olive or linseed oil, cotton seed oil, almond oil and castor oil.

Acids, the sour part of the juices of plants, very evident in green apples, lemons, cherries and the like.

Why Fertilisers Are Needed. — It is in these forms that we get what the plant first drew from the soil. If the ground has not in it all the elements the plant needs they must be supplied or the plant can not thrive. A farmer who sows his fields year after year must expect to put back some of the food the plants are continually taking from the ground or he will finally have his land entirely "worn out" — that is, devoid of available plant food. That is why fertilizers are needed, and why all dead leaves and other waste plant matter should be left to decay on the ground. Each decaying plant returns to the soil most of the elements it took from it.

It is a poor plan, anywhere, to try to get something for nothing. The plant can not give us our food if it does not have plenty of material to make it. So before planting our seeds we should be sure the soil has food enough in it for the growing plants, and that it is in the right form for them to use.

1. Learn this quotation from Dr. Knapp:

"If you would have your field feed you, feed your field."

2. Some questions to think about :

Why is rainfall a better source of moisture than irrigation? Why can the same crop not be raised on the same land for many years without fertilizing?

Why can the plant not use all the food elements in the soil? Suggest two ways in which soil fertility can be renewed.

Chapter IV Two Ways Of Growing

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CORNSTALK AND AN OAK TREE

( I ) First Difference, the Leaves. — What is the difference between a cornstalk and an oak tree ? That sounds Hke a conundrum, doesn't it ? But it is not. It is a very serious question, and when you can answer it fully you will know the difference between the two great groups into which all flowering plants are divided.

The first difference you will notice is in the leaves.

Usually an oak leaf and a corn blade are very unlike in shape and size; but even if they were alike in those respects there would still remain one way in which they would differ greatly from each other.

How do the veins of the corn blade run ? They do not

Typical Oak Tree

20 FIEJ.D LORE FOR YOUNG FARMERS branch and cross like those in the oak leaf, but ero straight, or almost straight, from the base of the blade to its tip. No matter how close they may come to each other, they never touch or cross, but remain side by side, or parallel, all the way.

Parallel Vkined Leaf (Grain Leaf)

lUit in the oak leaf the veins make a delicate network that covers the whole leaf. Have you ever picked up a "skeleton" leaf in the woods — a dry, brown leaf from which every part but the veins had decayed? Do you remember how much it .looked like a dainty, crisp bit of brown lace? Nothing in the world of Nature is more beautiful and wonderful than this complex tracery of veins in such k'a\es as those of the oaks, maples, and hundreds of others of our trees and plants.

1m )r all tlic plants in the world, or very nearly all of them, belong, as we said before, to one or the other of these two great groups, the net-veined or parallel-veined plants. Which kind do you think you could find the most of in your own woods ?

Net Veinki) Leaf (ALnplc Leaf)

TWO WAYS OF GROWING 21

Second Difference, the Seeds. — But there are many other differences between the plants of these two great classes besides the difference in their leaves. Their seeds are not all alike, for one thing. Examine carefully an acorn and a grain of corn. The acorn splits readily into two similar halves, while the grain of corn does not divide at all unless you cut it. So the oak may be said to have a two-parted seed, while the corn seed is one-parted. People who have studied these things very carefully tell us that nearly all of the plants with parallel-veined leaves have one-parted seeds, while plants having net-veined leaves have two-parted seeds.

Third Difference, the Stem and Branches. — But the greatest difference of all is in the way the stems of these plants grow.

Both may bear leaves, flowers and fruit, but while those having one-parted seeds and parallel-veined leaves usually have most of their foliage at or near the top, with very few branches, ^^™ ^^^^ ^''''^

if any at all, on the rest of the stem or trunk ; those having two-parted seeds and net-veined leaves may have 1)ranches all the way up, and have their foliage distributed quite evenly over their whole structure.

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I^J i i§

Transverse Section of Oak Tree

Whai Jl'c Find Beneath the Bark of an Oak Tree. — If you cut an oak branch straight across you will find in

the center a circle of pith, and around this a number of rings of woody fiber, the whole being surrounded by an outer circle of l)ark. You have counted the rings on the end of a log many times, no doubt, to see how old the tree was when it was cut, and know that a new ring of woody fiber is added every year that the tree stands and grows.

Between the bark and the wood, although you can not distinguish it with the naked eye, is a circle of young cells which through all the growing season are at work making the new growth of the tree. These young cells increase and multiply, most of them being changed into the woody fiber that makes the new annual ring, while some of them make the new, tender bark which you see under the old, rough layer on the outside. This is called the "growing point" of the stem, and because it is outside of the solid cylinder that forms the main part of the stem, plants that grow in this way are called "outside growers."

The growth continues from the time it begins in the spring until it is checked by frost in the fall. Then the cells lie dormant until warm weather comes again,

TWO WAYS OF GROWING when they immediately begin work once more, making another ring to mark another season. They always begin right where they left off, so the stem keeps getting larger in diameter year by year.

What We Find Beneath the Rind of a Cornstalk. — When you cut the cornstalk across, however, you find something very different. Instead of the pithy center, with its regular, surrounding

rings of woody fiber, you find the whole stalk inside the thin, outer rind filled with pith, and the woody fiber scattered through it in long threads that run up and down the whole length of the stalk. These threads of woody fiber are very small, and the ends of them where you cut them off in cutting across the stalk look like little dots scattered through the pith. If you examine the thin, outside covering of the stalk you will find that it is full of these little thread-like fibers, too, set much more closely together than those on the inside of the plant.

These fibers are really little bundles of cells that carry the sap up through the plant. They grow for only one

Dormant Elm (This grand old elm stands in front of the National capitol at Washington.)

season, then stop ; and as there is no "growing point" hke that in the oak stem they can not go on when spring comes again. So when these cells stop growing at the end of the season we say the bundle is "closed."

And as the new season opens, the stem can never increase in diameter as the stems of the outside growers can.

Inside Grozvers and Outside ^™ mvER ""''"^ Grozvers.— Because the growth takes place inside the stem, plants of this kind are called "inside growers." Most grasses — and these include the small grains — the palms, bamboos, canes and similar plants belong to the inside growers. They have one-parted seeds, parallel-veined leaves, and usually bear three-parted flowers. Their stems do not enlarge in diameter after a few seasons' growth, but where they live on year after year, like the palms, they grow in height.

Most of our forest trees, many of our field crops, such as beans, peas and clovers, and by far the greater part of our wild flowers and shrubs, belong to the outside growers. They have stems that resemble a cylinder in shape, leaves that have netted veins, two-parted seeds — sometimes more than two, but never less — trees and shrubs increase both in height and diameter from year to year. There are annuals, biennials and perennials.

TWO WAYS OF GROWING 25

There are about twenty thousand kinds of plants that belong to the inside growers, while more than eighty thousand belong to the outside growers. So by far the greater part of the earth's vegetation belongs to the latter class.

Cut off the tip of an oak branch and find out how many woody rings it has. Then cut off the branch close to the trunk and count the rings. Is there a difference in number?

Examine the bark of a tree and the rind of a cornstalk and see if you can tell why one needs to be so much thicker and heavier than the other.

Plant some grains of corn and wheat in one box and some beans and squash seeds in another. In a little notebook write down everything you observe about their growth for the first ten days. What differences do you find ?

Go to the woods and find five plants having net-veined leaves and five having parallel-veined leaves. How do their stems differ ? In what way would you expect the seeds to differ ? What are the names of the plants found in the woods ?

Chapter V The Right Plant In The Right Place

JVhy Each Crop SJiould be Studied. — The struggle for existence has developed plants suited to different conditions. The conditions that suit one plant best may not do at all for another. Therefore if we want to make our various crops thrive we must study each one by itself and find out all we can as to the conditions and surroundings that suit it best. Otherwise we may plant crops on that part of the farm least suited to them and we may waste our efforts trying to grow crops not adapted to our soils or climate.

~ Difference in the Plant Food Needed. — Although all plants nuist have the ten elements spoken of before, they do not use them in the same proportion. A field of oats uses more potash than is used by the same amount of corn, while potatoes, or beets, or any of the root crops, take more than either oats or corn. Wheat requires perhaps less potash than the root crops but requires more nitrogen, and so on.

Elements Most Important for Plant Food. — The most important soil constituents or soil elements whose supply we have to consider when we are studying our soils with regard to the plant food in them are nitrogen, potash and phosphorus, or phosphoric acid. The other seven elements are usually present in sufficient quantities. Carbon comes from the air, so there is always plenty of that. Oxygen and hydrogen come from water, and the rest are supplied about as fast as needed by the solution and decay of soil grains. So our work of supplying plant food is usually confined to the three elements named.

Importance of an Element not Dependent upon Quantity Used by the Plant. — Of these three the question of the nitrogen supply is probably the most serious one. But for all that we can not say that nitrogen is the most important element, as each has a place of its own which no other can fill. Thus, while only a very small per cent, of iron is required to make a wheat stalk, yet the wheat could not grow without that tiny bit any more than it could without its much larger supply of nitrogen. You do not eat nearly as much salt as potatoes for your dinner, yet the little you do eat is just as important as the much greater bulk of potatoes. If you had no salt in your food it would be neither so palatable nor so digestible, and would do you little good.

Hozv Nitrogen Differs from Other Food Elements. — So, though nitrogen is not properly more important than other elements which are used in smaller cjuantities, yet it must be more carefully considered than any other, for two reasons. One is, of course, because so much of it is needed ; the other is because so much of it is wasted. It differs in this way from the other two important elements named, potash and phosphorus. These are not so easily lost as nitrogen. The soil keeps such firm hold of them that they can not be taken out of it to any great extent except by the roots of plants as these use them. But nitrogen escapes in several ways. A great deal is washed out of the soil by rains and carried off in surface water; it seeps down into the subsoil so far that plants can not reach it ; in some forms it escapes quickly into the air. It is, in fact, a very sprite of an element, and objects strongly to being harnessed down to do the work of man. The only way to be sure of losing as little of it as possible is to have a growing crop on the ground all the time, waiting to take it up whenever it is ready to use.

Hozv Legumes Catch and Hold the Nitrogen. — Our best servants for catching and holding nitrogen are those plants called legumes. These are the plants whose seeds are borne in little pods, like the clovers, peas, beans, vetches and peanuts. They have the power of taking nitrogen from the air in much larger quantities than other common plants can. And the legumes would be as helpless as other plants if it were not for tiny organisms called bacteria which like to live in the tissues of these plants. These bacteria are so very, very small that it takes a strong microscope to see them, yet they are very busy, helpful little servants for all that. In a strange way which no one exactly understands they are able to take nitrogen from the air, especially from the air which fills the spaces between the soil particles. It is then carried through all the tissues of the plant, and in this way the plant itself is enabled to make use of the valuable element which these tiny servants have been busily gathering up/