SUMMER CULTIVATION.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 245, 19 November 1914, Page 5

SUMMER CULTIVATION.

A PLEA FOR THE HOE. Summer cultivation is, as the Americans would say, a '-''great" problem. It is no mere bit of fancy scientific theory or faddish high-farming. It existed long before the thing that we now call "science" was ever invented. It was practised by the ancients before fertilisers were discovered. In fact, fertilisers stole their name from it. We usually call fertilisers " manures.'' Well, the word used to be "manoeuvre," which simply means to "hand-work." To manure —or to manoeuvre a soil really meant in the earlier ( days to '' handwork it''—to tickle il; up with" a hoe. But now, since fertilisers unworthily stole the name, we talk instead about tickling our soils with fertilisers. What poor, "impotent substitutes these fertilisers are by comparison! Let a summer crop manoeuvred by the hoe (or the harrows) compete against one manoeuvred by fertilisers, and the hoe will win the victory every time. • On an ordinary soil tillage is always more powerful than fertilisers. It is a marvellous fact, however, that agricultural experimenters all over the world are devoting volumes of printed matter to the recording of comparison tests with various fertilisers, and preserving a death-like silence on • the supreme question of surface cultivation. What an army of experts—clever ones, too—there are in the world ignoring a tremendous opportunity! What matters it whether one brand of bonedust is a trifle better or a trifle /Worse than another? We know both are good, and so long as we use one of them, it matters little which. The difference is so microscopical. But this cannot be said of cultivation. Good cultivation on average soil will almost guarantee a good crop; but on the same soil, with poor cultivation, the best brand of fertiliser in New Zealand is utterly helpless to save the crop from ruin. The position might be summed up in this way: If fertilisers are worth three times their cost, cultivation is worth its cost thirtyfold.

Let us talk details. The scientists have told us why summer surface cultir vation is so beneficial. It is because the plant roots take their food in a liquid form, and surface tillage saves that store of liquid in the soil from being lost. Probably 99 per cent, of the food, as plant roots take it up in the soil, consists of sheer water. The rest is made up of a mere trace of that stuff for which we pay our money when we buy fertilisers. Therefore, moisture is 99 times more valuable than fertilisers—just as water is the most valuable food of man. We must not mistake market price for value. The fact that some soils get too much water in the winter doesn't disprove its value, any more than the fact of a man drowning himself disproves its value as a drink. By summer, cultivation we mean-main-tenance continually and completely of a loose surface. Perhaps it may sound like a nasty thing to say, but the farmers who really cultivate property appear to be very few. Some of us wait till the damage is done, and cultivate afterwards. Some others of us cultivate all the time: but only in patches. "When we do this and we get no benefit, we are worse off than those others of us who don't cultivate at all, for the last lot certainly saves itself the trouble.

Suppose we have a valuable area of mangolds or strawberries —the argument applies equally to both—and we hope to make a lot of money out of the crop. We have gone to considerable expense in getting the crop to the growing stage, and have, perhaps, scarified it till eveTy weed that grew has been annihilated. We put the tools away and await our reward. An occasional shower comes and flattens down the soil that our scarifying had left loose. Warm suns and drying winds follow, and as there are no weeds germinating, the owner tells himself that the conditions are favourable. It doesn't occur to him to notice that the crust of his soil has set, and that capillary attraction is able to proceed at a tremendous pace, pouring the soil moisture up into-the sunbeams. This may be going on for a couple of months, and the farmer wonders why the crop isn't doing better. He concludes that the seed or plants were a poor lot, or the variety is "unsuited to the locality," or the season has been against them. Then a friend drops in, examines the crop, and suggests a bit of scarifying between the rows to "break up the crust." So the tools are got to work again and a'' soil mulch'' created. If it is a mangold crop, and the mulch is maintained by repeated cultivation whenever a shower sets the surface again, it is more than likely that the crop will improve, though it will never regain the tons weight that it has already lost. But if it is strawberies, and the fruiting period is well advanced, a recovery may never take place. The reason is very simple. First, there is the fact tha.t, owing to the streams of moisture that have been continually soaking up to the surface and vanishing into the atmosphere, every moment of the day and of the night I for two long, hot months, the soil has become rapidly dessieated, and the delicate little roots, whose duty it is to replace the moisture, that evaporates from the leaves, have become distressingly thirsty, and unable to perform their offices. Secondly, the excessive drying and contracting of the soil have inflicted actual physical injury to those roots. When soil dries and cracks, many little roots must- inevitably be snapped off, and many others lacerated and dried up. The delicate root hairs, which do so much of the feeding, then perish. Cultivating that comes too late cannot raise dead roots to life, nor make a very dry soil instantly moist