Agriculture for Beginners by Daniel Harvey Hill (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📖
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Hemp. Like flax, hemp adapts itself wonderfully to many countries and many climates. However, in America most of our hemp is grown in Kentucky.
Fig. 219. Cutting Hemp
Hemp needs soil rich enough to give the young plants a very rapid growth in their early days so that they may form long fibers. To give this crop abundant nitrogen without great cost, it should be grown in a rotation which includes one of the legumes. Rich, well-drained bottom-lands produce the largest yields of hemp, but uplands which have been heavily manured make profitable yields.
The ground for hemp is prepared as for other grain crops. The seed is generally broadcasted for a fiber crop and then harrowed in. No cultivation is required after seeding.
If hemp is grown for seed, it is best to plant with a drill so that the crop may be cultivated. The stalks after being cut are put in shocks until they are dry. Then the seeds are threshed. Large amounts of hemp seed are sold for caged birds and for poultry; it is also used for paint-oils.
SECTION XLVII. BUCKWHEATBuckwheat shares with rye and cowpeas the power to make a fairly good crop on poor land. At the same time, of course, a full crop can be expected only from fertile land.
The three varieties most grown in America are the common gray, the silver-hull, and the Japanese. The seeds of the common gray are larger than the silver-hull, but not so large as the Japanese. The seeds from the gray variety are generally regarded as inferior to the other two. This crop is grown to best advantage in climates where the nights are cool and moist. It matures more quickly than any other grain crop and is remarkably free from disease. The yield varies from ten to forty bushels an acre. Buckwheat does not seem to draw plant food heavily from the soil and can be grown on the same land from year to year.
In fertilizing buckwheat land, green manures and rich nitrogenous fertilizers should be avoided. These cause such a luxuriant growth that the stalks lodge badly.
The time of seeding will have to be settled by the height of the land and by the climate. In northern climates and in high altitudes the seeding is generally done in May or June. In southern climates and in low altitudes the planting may wait until July or August. The plant usually matures in about seventy days. It cannot stand warm weather at blooming-time, and must always be planted so that it may escape warm weather in its blooming period and cold weather in its maturing season. The seeds are commonly broadcasted at an average rate of four pecks to the acre. If the land is loose and pulverized, it should be rolled.
Fig. 220. Buckwheat in Shock
Buckwheat ripens unevenly and will continue to bloom until frost. Harvesting usually begins just after the first crop of seeds have matured. To keep the grains from shattering, the harvesting is best done during damp or cloudy days or early in the morning while the dew is still on the grain. The grain should be threshed as soon as it is dry enough to go through the thresher.
Buckwheat is grown largely for table use. The grain is crushed into a dark flour that makes most palatable breakfast cakes. The grain, especially when mixed with corn, is becoming popular for poultry food. The middlings, which are rich in fats and protein, are prized for dairy cows.
SECTION XLVIII. RICEThe United States produces only about one half of the rice that it consumes. There is no satisfactory reason for our not raising more of this staple crop, for five great states along the Gulf of Mexico are well adapted to its culture.
Fig. 221. Threshing Rice
There are two distinct kinds of rice, upland rice and lowland rice. Upland rice demands in general the same methods of culture that are required by other cereals, for example, oats or wheat. The growing of lowland rice is considerably more difficult and includes the necessity of flooding the fields with water at proper times.
A stiff, half-clay soil with some loam is best suited to this crop. The soil should have a clay subsoil to retain water and to give stiffness enough to allow the use of harvesting-machinery. Some good rice soils are so stiff that they must be flooded to soften them enough to admit of plowing. Plow deeply to give the roots ample feeding-space. Good tillage, which is too often neglected, is valuable.
Careful seed-selection is perhaps even more needed for rice than for any other crop. Consumers want kernels of the same size. Be sure that your seed is free from red rice and other weeds. Drilling is much better than broadcasting, as it secures a more even distribution of the seed.
The notion generally prevails that flooding returns to the soil the needed fertility. This may be true if the flooding-water deposits much silt, but if the water be clear it is untrue, and fertilizers or leguminous crops are needed to keep up fertility. Cowpeas replace the lost soil-elements and keep down weeds, grasses, and red rice.
Red rice is a weed close kin to rice, but the seed of one will not produce the other. Do not allow it to get mixed and sowed with your rice seed or to go to seed in your field.
SECTION XLIX. THE TIMBER CROPForest trees are not usually regarded as a crop, but they are certainly one of the most important crops. We should accustom ourselves to look on our trees as needing and as deserving the same care and thought that we give to our other field crops. The total number of acres given to the growth of forest trees is still enormous, but we should each year add to this acreage.
Unfortunately very few forests are so managed as to add yearly to their value and to preserve a model stand of trees. Axmen generally fell the great trees without thought of the young trees that should at once begin to fill the places left vacant by the fallen giants. Owners rarely study their woodlands to be sure that the trees are thick enough, or to find out whether the saplings are ruinously crowding one another. Disease is often allowed to slip in unchecked. Old trees stand long after they have outlived their usefulness.
The farm wood-lot, too, is often neglected. As forests are being swept away, fuel is of course becoming scarcer and more costly. Every farmer ought to plant trees enough on his waste land to make sure of a constant supply of fuel. The land saved for the wood-lot should be selected from land unfit for cultivation. Steep hillsides, rocky slopes, ravines, banks of streams—these can, without much expense or labor, be set in trees and insure a never-ending fuel supply.
Fig. 222. Wood Lot
Before proper treatment
The most common enemies of the forest crop are:
First, forest fires. The waste from forest fires in the United States is most startling. Many of these fires are the result of carelessness or ignorance. Most of the states have made or are now making laws to prevent and to control such fires.
Second, fungous diseases. The timber loss from these diseases is exceedingly great.
Third, insects of many kinds prey on the trees. Some strip all the leaves from the branches. Others bore into the roots, trunk, or branches. Some lead to a slow death; others are more quickly fatal.
Fourth, improper grazing. Turning animals into young woods may lead to serious loss. The animals frequently ruin young trees by eating all the foliage. Hogs often unearth and consume most of the seeds needed for a good growth.
Fig. 223. Wood Lot
After proper treatment
The handling of forests is a business just as the growing of corn is a business. In old forests, dead and dying trees should be cut. Trees that occupy space and yet have little commercial value should give way to more valuable trees. A quick-growing tree, if it is equally desirable, should be preferred to a slow grower. An even distribution of the trees should be secured.
In all there are about five hundred species of trees which are natives of the United States. Probably not over seventy of these are desirable for forests. In selecting trees to plant or to allow to grow from their own seeding, pick those that make a quick growth, that have a steady market value, and that suit the soil, the place of growth, and the climate.
SECTION L. THE FARM GARDENEvery farmer needs a garden in which to grow not only vegetables but small fruits for the home table.
The garden should always be within convenient distance of the farmhouse. If possible, the spot selected should have a soil of mixed loam and clay. Every foot of soil in the garden should be made rich and mellow by manure and cultivation. The worst soils for the home garden are light, sandy soils, or stiff, clayey soils; but any soil, by judicious and intelligent culture, can be made suitable.
In laying out the garden we should bear in mind that hand labor is the most expensive kind of labor. Hence we should not, as is commonly done, lay off the garden spot in the form of a square, but we should mark off for our purpose a long, narrow piece of land, so that the cultivating tools may all be conveniently drawn by a horse or a mule. The use of the plow and the horse cultivator enables the cultivation of the garden to be done quickly, easily, and cheaply.
Each vegetable or fruit should be planted in rows, and not in little patches. Beginning with one side of the garden the following plan of arrangement is simple and complete: two rows to corn for table use; two to cabbages, beets, radishes, and eggplants; two to onions, peas, and beans; two to oyster-plants, okra, parsley, and turnips; two to tomatoes; then four on the other side can be used for strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, currants, and gooseberries.
Fig. 224. Where Delicious Garden Vegetables grow
The garden, when so arranged, can be tilled in the spring and tended throughout the growing season with little labor and little loss of time. In return for this odd-hour work, the farmer's family will have throughout the year an abundance of fresh, palatable, and health-giving vegetables and small fruits.
The keynote of successful gardening is to stir the soil. Stir it often with four objects in view:
1. To destroy weeds.
2. To let air enter the soil.
3. To enrich the soil by the action of the air.
4. To retain the moisture by preventing its evaporation.
This illustration shows that practically every garden vegetable and all the small fruits can be included in the farm garden, and all the work be done by horse-drawn tools.
[1] The number of rows and arrangement of the vegetables in the outline above are merely suggestive. They should be changed to meet the needs and the tastes of each particular family.
CHAPTER IX FEED STUFFS SECTION LI. GRASSESUnder usual conditions no farmer expects to grow live
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