FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142  
143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   >>   >|  
y to give the roots ample feeding-space. Good tillage, which is too often neglected, is valuable. Careful seed-selection is perhaps even more needed for rice than for any other crop. Consumers want kernels of the same size. Be sure that your seed is free from red rice and other weeds. Drilling is much better than broadcasting, as it secures a more even distribution of the seed. The notion generally prevails that flooding returns to the soil the needed fertility. This may be true if the flooding-water deposits much silt, but if the water be clear it is untrue, and fertilizers or leguminous crops are needed to keep up fertility. Cowpeas replace the lost soil-elements and keep down weeds, grasses, and red rice. Red rice is a weed close kin to rice, but the seed of one will not produce the other. Do not allow it to get mixed and sowed with your rice seed or to go to seed in your field. SECTION XLIX. THE TIMBER CROP Forest trees are not usually regarded as a crop, but they are certainly one of the most important crops. We should accustom ourselves to look on our trees as needing and as deserving the same care and thought that we give to our other field crops. The total number of acres given to the growth of forest trees is still enormous, but we should each year add to this acreage. Unfortunately very few forests are so managed as to add yearly to their value and to preserve a model stand of trees. Axmen generally fell the great trees without thought of the young trees that should at once begin to fill the places left vacant by the fallen giants. Owners rarely study their woodlands to be sure that the trees are thick enough, or to find out whether the saplings are ruinously crowding one another. Disease is often allowed to slip in unchecked. Old trees stand long after they have outlived their usefulness. The farm wood-lot, too, is often neglected. As forests are being swept away, fuel is of course becoming scarcer and more costly. Every farmer ought to plant trees enough on his waste land to make sure of a constant supply of fuel. The land saved for the wood-lot should be selected from land unfit for cultivation. Steep hillsides, rocky slopes, ravines, banks of streams--these can, without much expense or labor, be set in trees and insure a never-ending fuel supply. [Illustration: FIG. 222. WOOD LOT Before proper treatment] The most common enemies of the forest crop are: First, forest fires. The waste
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142  
143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

needed

 

forest

 

fertility

 
supply
 
forests
 

flooding

 

thought

 
neglected
 

generally

 

crowding


Disease

 

allowed

 

unchecked

 
feeding
 

ruinously

 

outlived

 

usefulness

 
places
 

vacant

 
tillage

fallen

 
giants
 

woodlands

 

Owners

 
rarely
 

saplings

 

scarcer

 

insure

 

ending

 

Illustration


streams

 

expense

 

common

 

enemies

 
treatment
 

proper

 
Before
 
ravines
 
farmer
 

costly


constant

 

hillsides

 

slopes

 
cultivation
 

selected

 

preserve

 

produce

 
grasses
 

kernels

 
SECTION