Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1874 — Wheat Without Manure. [ARTICLE]

Wheat Without Manure.

Our readers have been frequently advised of what has been done by Mr. Lawes, of England, in the way of raising repeated crops of grain upon the same land year after year, both without and with manure. But Mr,, labors have been experimental. We have now before us a report of the sales of the standing crops of wheat, oats and clover upon two farms in England upon which these crops have been raised successfully for a dozen years, and sold standing, to be cut and carted away by the purchasers, both straw and grain together. No stock is kept upon these farms. No manure is used upon them. Deep plowing by steam and draining to further deepen the soil are the only means by which these crops are produced year after year. One of these farms is otvned and cultivated by Mr. Prout, of Saw*. bridgeworth, and consists of 450 acres. The present season’s crop was chiefly wheat, which, sold by the acre as it stood, realized from $45 to SB9 per acre for grain and straw. The purchaser in all cases does the harvesting. The average prices were, for wheat, $54.40 per acre; oats, $49 per acre, and clover, $52 per acre. The whole proceeds of the 450 acres were $23,141, an average of $58.80 per acre. The average result of the past seven years? crops has been $51.25 per acre. The farm was purchased twelve years ago and was thqn in poor condition. It was drained and $4,090 worth of chemical fertilizers were used, to bring it into a producing state. Sinee then it has been cultivated deeply by steam each year, but no fertilizer has been used, nor has the straw even been retained upon the farm. The other

farm is owned by Mr. Middleditch, of Wißahke. It, has been managed upon the same plan. The crops upon this farm brought from $lB to SB6 per acre, or an average of $55. The aftermath of some fields of sadfoin, which Were to be pastured by sheep, sold for slfl to $lB per acre. There are 690 acres in this fann. Both farms have a .clay foil, and are fairly good wheat lands, bjU at the commencement of this cropping were much run down. The farmers who purchased the crops, mid some who had taken them for several years, said that those of the present year were the best crops for several years, and Mr. Prout expressed the opinion that he could ttamj farm “ as long as he lived, and his son after him.” We do not pretend to make any application of this anomalous kind of fanning, but merely give the facts. At the same time we cannot refrain from comparing it with some farms we have seen in the rich valleys of Ohio and westward, where for twenty years the merest scratching of the deep, rieh soil, and the raising of wheat upon the unplowed corh-stubble, year after year, has made farmers comfortable, if not rich, and thinking at the same time that it is possible, if those rich lands were better treated, and farmed more with the plow and less with the barrow, that they might produce better crops than .they now do, and remain profitable to their owners for an indefinite number of years to come. —American Agriculturist.