THE FARMERS' COLUMN.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume II, Issue 114, 18 May 1881, Page 4

THE FARMERS' COLUMN.

AUTUMN TILLAGE.

By this time most farmers have ascertained the profits or losses, as the case may be, resulting from the operations of the past year. Whether the results of his past efforts are satisfactory or not, the faamer cannot remain idle, and the sooner he gets the plough to work again the better chance of a good result next year. We hare had a long spell of dry weather since Christmas, which has been very beneficial as far as harvesting is concerned, though extremly trying to the pasture lands. However, it is well known that the clerk of the weather cannot control the supplies to suit all branches of agriculture, however willing he may be, and if such were possible, farmers would be miserable at the want of something to grumble about, and perhaps their health would suffer in consequence. The seasons wait for no man; therefore the farmer must keep pace with the seasons. Agriculture does not admit of procrastination ; those who commence ploughing^ when they ought to be sowing generally find out their mistake to their cost when harvest comes round. Autumn is undoubtedly the pleasantest time of the year in which to work the ground, and it is also, as every good farmer knows, the time when such work can be done to the greatest advantage. During winter and early spring there is generally an excess of rain, making the land sloppy and disagreeable for the ploughman, and causing the plough to smeaifthe furrows, and the harrows to clog with roots of grass, greatly increasing the work of the horses and man. In the summer the land is too dry very often for much progress to be made, but in the months of autumn, after a good soaking rain, the ground is both solid and moist ; the ploughirons, cutting square and clean, make good and satisfactory work, with none of the discomforts of slush or dust to the operator. Not only are weeds killed by early and deep cultivation, but the vegetation of the seeds is much hastened, the soil becomes disintegrated, and the winter rains are enabled to pass through instead of remaining in a state of poisonous stagnation — and stagnant water is ruinous to young plants, as every farmer knows, so that every precaution should be taken to guard against this cvil — while the serated land more easily absorbs and retains the treasures derived from the air and from the sun. In fact, as Mr. Mechi says, "the particles of earth should be rendered accessible to air by cultivation and drainage. We should have a surface kept open, loose, and porous, instead of what we too often see, a dense, unmoved, pasty covering, inaccessible to aeriform fertilisers," as must be the case when cultivation is performed late in the season amid the frosts and frequent rains ; the soil is smudged and smeared, and cannot derive any good from the atmosphere by taking in such materials as ammonia, oxygen, and carbonic acid.

Early autumn culture is attended with other advantages as applied to corn stubbles. The growth of weeds is checked, and the seeds of annuals that have been shed in harvesting are induced to germinate, which, when reploughed in the spring, will be utterly destroyed. For the sake of doing as much " golden early autumn culture " as possible, grain-growers should obtain every machine adapted for performing harvest work speedily, so as to get the harvest over as early as possible, though the state of the weather has often more to do with this matter than any machinery. To get through the yearly round of farm work with comfort and despatch one requires to keep good horses, and plenty of them, also the most approved machinery and appliances, of which, now, the name is legion. Every farmer has not the means to purchase all he would like of the above-named articles, but he may be sure that money judiciously laid out in this way will return to him in a short time. A man who is behind the times either in method or machinery will certainly be behind with his work, and what he does is done in such a muddling way that he has no pleasure, no profit, in his operations.. — Otago Witness.