File:Our farm and building book. (1915) (14576645388).jpg

Identifier: OurFarmAndBuildingBook (find matches)
Title: Our farm and building book.
Year: 1915 (1910s)
Authors: William A. Radford
Subjects: farm buildings -- catalogs agricultural buildings barns house plans
Publisher: Radford Architectural Company
Contributing Library: MBJ collection

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naturaiiy too wet for alfalfa often turn off the best and largest yields when they are tiledrained. Theoretically, tile drains should bedeep down in the ground. A line oftile put down 10 feet below the sur-face in a free soil will drain a wideswath, but the cost is too great.Then, it generally happens that theland we are working with is eithervery close grained or it may be un-derlaid with hard pan, or from someother cause water can hardly gothrough it. In that case, a tile drain,10 feet deep, would be useless. There is no hard and fast rule forthe depth of tile drains, at the sametime farmers who have done muchtiling prefer a drain no less than 4feet down from the surface. Some-times it is not possible to get anoutlet for tile drains 4 feet deep, butsuch places are generally left untilthe last. It is natural to select theeasy places first and to tackle thedifficult jobs after we have had ex-perience. Bacteria Needed Good alfalfa soil is alive, it con-tains humus which feeds different
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# Alfalfa, one year growth—7 feet Wainches long. The great tap-root goesdown and finds moisture, even in adry time. kinds of bacteria. These micro-scopical workers are busy pre-paring plant food for the youngalfalfa plants. They are the chemistsin natures laboratory, engaged inmanufacturing and injecting carefullyprepared plant food into what we callsoil water. For raw material, theseminute workers have the buried or-ganic fiber of plants, together withthe soil particles containing the dif-ferent elements that go to make upplants as ordinarily found in goodsoil, with the addition of carbon fromthe atmosphere and possibly someother chemicals that are not wanted.These different forms of bacteriawork with the crude humus that theplow has turned under. There isnitrogen in humus, but it is not al-ways available until these minute soilworkers break it down and convertit into soluble nitrates. In this soil laboratory, other workis carried on that is vital to the lifeof alfalfa. Special bac

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