VOL. LXVI
INDIANAPOLIS, OOT. 7, 1911.
NO. 40
IMPORTANT POINTS IN FARMING.
SOME   THINGS   AFFECTING   CROP
YIELDS.
By H. E: Mern.
Planting a crop is more or less of a
gamble. You wager the cost of planting, caring for, and harvesting the
crop that it will be worth more than
the cost. Whether you win or not depends on    a  number    of       	
things. Usually you do
win, but not always.
Why? Possibly there was
something which you
oould not, or at least did
not take into account in
raising your crop. This
aliscussion will be devoted
to a few of the factors
which affect crop yields.
For our purpose we have
selected the following five
topics: the seed, pests and
diseases, the weather,
plant food and  water.
The Best Seed.
It is but a truism to say
\wt th« R4>ed should be of
the best. Men have said
[hat for ages. How many
of them, though, have
made it a practice to
plant only the best seed?
How many, in fact, know
what "best" seed is. Two
things are required of
"best" seed. First, it must
grow vigorously; and secondly, it must be of the
variety and strain which
does best in its locality.
Much of the recent improvement in corn cultural practice has been
along this line. Who can
measure the value to Indiana of the  germinating      	
box? It takes care of the first
requirement for "best" seed because only that is planted which has
shown that it will grow vigorously. It
does not take care of the second requirement. A field trial is the only
means of doing that. What is true of
corn in this respect is true of wheat,
except that the germinating box cannot be used as with corn. A great
many unproductive strains of wheat
are sown every year in Indiana; and,
to addition, a great deal of the wheat
ls 'loomed before it is sown. Some of
the grains are shriveled and weak,
some are light, some are infected with
disease; and it often happens that the
good .heavy grains which produce the
strong, productive stalks are in the
minority rather than in the majority.
Are these conditions necessary? No
and   yes.      The   shrivelled,   small   and
'Kht grains can be screened and  fan-
*d out; and some of the diseases may
j* controlled by treatment with forma-
"• but as yet tlfcre is no satisfactory
^■eatment for some of the  wheat dis-
ases.     When we consider clover seed,
* have a case where there is even less
chance for control of jonditions.     The
overs as yet are not so much divided
0 Varieties and strains as are other
Ps-    Here ls a chance for some one
° do some good work by specializing
me strain of clover for a special pur-
*•» or a special locality.    Such work
is going to lead to better returns. The
problem of getting the best seed to sow
is a large one with any crop, and it is
scarcely possible to give it too much
attention.
Insects  and  Fungus   Disease.
With many crops, however, the
problem of insect pests and fungus diseases Is of equal or .greater importance
than that of the seed. This, of course,
is  especially true  of the fruits, -which
ing the latter part of the period of
growth. Late frosts and early frosts
annually do damage to crops, and
sometimes this damage is of great
importance. Every year there is a
large loss due to drouth. To greenhouse men, an insufficiency of light
may even be of importance. A number
of other Instances of the effect of the
weather on crop yields might easily be
cited, but these mentioned are enough
for   our  purpose   here.      The   point   is
Devil's Tea Table, near Worthington, Ind.; photographed by Herman Hayden.
are particularly susceptible to their attacks and are not raised directly from
seed. Even with the cereals, however,
the influence is very great. The cutworms, white grubs, corn ear worm,
wire worms, and the smut have lost
many men a .great deal of money on
the corn crop; while the Hessian fly,
the joint worm, the rusts, smuts, and
other diseases have cut many a wheat
yield far short of its possibilities.
What can be done? Most of the fruit
pests and diseases can be controlled by
spraying; some of the insects affecting
field crops can be avoided; and some
of the fungus diseases can be held In
check by seed treatment; but for the
most part, the grower of field crops is
pretty much at the mercy of these
hindrances. In the future we may reasonably expect investigators to find
some practical remedy for many or all
of those diseases over which we now
have no control.
Weather and Quality of Crops.
The weather is a third factor which
has a great deal to do with crop yields
and with the quality of the products.
Every one knows that warm weather
and an abundance of water are of great
importance to the corn crop. The
quality and yield of wheat depend very
largely on the weather, the hardest,
best milling wheat being produced
when the weather is hot and dry, dur-
that the weather is one of the determining factors in crop yields and that
it must be taken pretty largely as it
comes. Fruit and garden crops can
often be protected from frosts, and the
effects of dry weather can be partially
overcome with some crops by thorough
tillage, but many crops cannot be tilled.
It is our personal conviction that irrigation is destined to become very generally the practice in humid sections
during periods of dry weather. UntU
then, we must remain largely dependent on the weather, the rainfall in particular.
Soil and Plant Food.
Another factor which deserves our
attention is the productivity of the
soil. By productivity we mean that
characteristic, whatever it is, by which
one soil will produce under identical
conditions larger yields than will another. The productivity of soils was
long attributed to the plant food in the
soil, but more recent researches show
that many other things are concerned
also. One group of men, led by Milton Whitney, of the Department of Agriculture, now maintain that there is
enough plant food in any ordinary soil
to stand continuous cropping for an
indefinite, long period of time; and
that, therefore, the cause of a lack of
productivity must be- Idolced for elsewhere.     They claim that the roots of
a plant secrete a substance which ls
harmful, poisonous in fact, to that
plant and sometimes to other plants.
This is given as the reason why continuous cropping leads to low yields. Another group of men, headed by Cyril G.
Hopkins of the University of Illinois,
champion the old idea that the essential cause of unproductiveness in a soil
Is a lack of plant food, usually phosphoric acid, potash, or nitrogen. It
is yet an unsettled question as to who
        is right or whether either
is right. Neither theory
seems to account for all
the facts in the case.
Whatever may be the
cause of unproductiveness we need not worry
about it. because we
know that tf we keep a
liberal supply of plant
food in the soil, keep up
practice good, clean cul-
tivaion, with rotation of
the humus content, and
crops, the productivity of
the soil will be high.
The Water Supply.
In all probability there
ls no one factor so potent
in determining crop
yields as is the water supply. This has already
been touched on in connection with one or two
other points, but its importance is so great as to
merit separate discussion.
We can realize the necessity of a very large water
supply when we consider
that on irrigated lands
the yield is regular, uniform, and very large, and
that a plant uses from
300 to 500 pounds of
water in producing one
pounds    of    dry    matter.
  Now, the amount of water which a soil will deliver to a plant
depends on ahe amount that it will absorb and the ease and completeness
with which it will give it up. A sandy
soil absorbs comparatively littla water
but delivers that little more freely and
completely than any other type of soil.
A clay soil stands at the opposite extreme, while a loam comes in between.
A heavy loam or a clay soil when flocculated; i. e., when the very flne soil
particles are cemented into larger ones,
partakes somewhat of the nature both
of clay and of sandy soils. It will give
up v/ater more readily than the dense
clay and will absorb more than the
light sandy soil. This fact helps to explain the beneficial effect of lime in
many instances.   It flocculates the clay.
Tile Drainage and Cultivation.
Crops may be injured by too much
water or by too little. If the former
be the case, the remedy, of course, is
drainage; and in many cases this must
be tile drainage. Paradoxical as it
may seem, tile drainage often lessens
the damage due to drouth. A patch
which is boggy in spring often becomes
dry in summer. Plants cannot root
deeply in the boggy soil, and when the
water level sinks in summer, they a.re
left high and dry. Tiling lowers the
water level in the spring, the plants
root deeply, and so have a larger store
of water at their disposal during the