INTENSE CULTURE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCIV, Issue 14452, 26 May 1911, Page 3

INTENSE CULTURE.

LN THE EAST. A humbk-minded pilgrimage by an expert was made in th© viuit of K H. ; King, of the Wisconsin Agricultural College, t-o Ciiina and Japan to study why their soils' could support three l>ersoim to the acre. Western agriculturists have much to learn from those far.mers who have made the soil respond for twenty and perhaps even forty centuries of service (says "Collier's Weekly"). The uverago farm is .supporting three persona to the acre, and in nearly all parts of "the denselypopulated sections two, three, and sometimes oven four crops are taken from lho .same field each year. Hut this is not only because of their longer growing reason. The .almost universal practice of planting nearly all crops in rows and in hills in the row permits one crop to bo planted, germinated. and often hoed before another crop has boon removed from the field, thus utilising for growth all of the time we consume in removing the bar-, vest and in fitting the ground for the' next crop. Then there is tho other very extensive practice of starting crops in nurseries under conditions of intensive fertilisation, securing on a much smaller area rapid growth and stronger plants, which are then transierrcd to the fields. In this manner even th:j vast areas covered by tlio staple nee crop are handled, the plants br>ing grown thirty or more days in small beds, gaining thereby so many days, during winch another crop on tlio field is matured, harvested, and the ground fitted f<.r the one to follow. Human labour is the one asset of which they Jinve an excess, and it is freely used in securing the effect of longer aeasous, which, because <A, their geographical position, -exceed ours (i.e. Ajjiencan). In Southern China two crops <;j rice arc regularly taken, and this is true evon in parts of Japan. In the Chekiang province a crop of rape, <>i wheat, or beans, or of mulching precedes Die summer enfo of rice or of cotton. In the .Shantung province a crop of winter wheat or of barley is followed in the summer with a crop of millet and soy beans, of sweet potatoes, or peanuts. As far north as J lentsi u and Pekin, in the latitude of Columbus, 0.. Indianopolis, and Sprint, field, 111., Mr King talked with *"a farmer who followed his crop of wheat with one of onions, and these with cabbage tlio same year, realising a "ross earning of 163d01. gold per aero. Another farmer planted a crop of white potatoes at the earliest opportunity in the spring, marketed them young, and followed with onions and then with c abbage, realising 203d01. per acre "for three crops.