Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 June 1878 — Treatment of Heavy Clay Soils. [ARTICLE]

Treatment of Heavy Clay Soils.

A reader desires to know the easiest way to improve a stiff clay soil, which is cold ana wet, of course, and retains its moisture until it becomes stagnant and sour. The most effectual way of benefiting such soils is to underdrain them, but in the case referred to, the expense of that method would be too great now to admit of its adoption. The next best plan is to make open drains, where water stands after rains, terminating in a ravine or ditch, so that the water after a rain will rapidly pass off. By this means no inconsiderable quantity of water will be carried off, which would otherwise remain until absorbed by the soil or dissipated by evaporation. Stiff clay lands may be benefited greatly by plowing them in the fall. Their adhesiveness is, in this way, greatly ameliorated; beside, the alternate freezing and the winter season, when they are thus broken up, pulverizes and renders them in fine condition for spring grains without further labor.

Such soils are also improved by coarse vegetable manures. Corn stalks, straw ana similar refuse incorporated by plowing them under, assists in separating the clay and rendering the soil moie friable and porous. A valuable aid, also, in accomplishing a like result, is found in a liberal use of lime, which is also beneficial in correcting any acidity that may be present in the soil, while, at the same time, it is a valuable fertilizer, in which tenacious clay soils are often wanting. A case occurs to us in the treatment of a tenacious clay soil where sand was used with most excellent results. The piece' treated was a stiff and nearly impervious clay. Not far away on the same farm was a bed of sand. At odd times when the land was plowed in the fall, the sand was hauled and applied to the clay, and when the piece had received about 100 loads it was well distributed by a thorough dragging. It was sown to oats and grass seed the following spring. The results were highly gratifying. The same plan was followed for several years, varying the crops, until what had been the nearly worthless stiff clay became a fertile clay loam, and one of the most productive portions of the farm. Such soils, by this method of treatment, become lasting soils, so to speak, and eminently adapted to pasture and meadow. But it is well understood that nothing is so beneficial to a clay soil as underdraining. Tho routine of cultivating such soils tends to form a compact strata justbelow the depth reached by the plow and the cultivator, and this necessarily acts as a basin in retaining the water that sinks through the cultivated or upper strata; and however beneficial the methods wo have mentioned may prove, retention of water by the subsoil in a late or backward season must unfavorably effect the crop grown upon such soil. The

water prevent* the heat of the sun from penetrating below it, and ohecks the growth of the roots of plants that penetrate to it. This difficulty is removed by underdraining. When this is done the subsoil that previously held the water like a tight vessel, at once transmits it like a filter, and as the water descends the air follows It. The rains of summer, charged with fertilizing elements, readily pertneato the soil, the sun warms it, and the roots of the growing plants find the conditions necessary to their vigorous development. Western Rural. * —At Sunny Point, Panola County, Tex., on Monday last, two negro children, one an infant and the other about two years of ago,, were killed and eaten by a sow. The parents left the children in the care of a girl seven years of age, and while the girl was playing in the yard the sow entered the house and seized the infant lying in the cradle and dragged it out. Before assistance could reach the house the animal had killed the infant and eaten its brains, and had attacked and eaten off a leg and arm of the oldest child. The latter lived some live or six hours after the horrible occurrence. —Qalveston News

In behalf of tramps, it is mentioned that Mr. Smith, of Stamford, Conn., with his wife, got out of bed to answer to the call Of a tramp, and that whilo they were gone there fell upon the bed a mass of mastering which would have probably killed them both had they remained. Mbs. Elder Dunford No. 6, of Salt Lake, has obtained a divorce from her part of that distinguished gentleman, and become Mrs. Bishop McAllister No. 10.