Category Start Thread: Topsoil Dissipation

greenspun.com : LUSENET : COMMUNITY FIRST : One Thread

Category Start Thread: Topsoil Dissipation

-- (communityfirst@thread.start-up), February 08, 2000

Answers

In the early 1940's Louis Bromfield, a well-known writer in the first half of the 20th century, bought 3 adjacent worn-out farms in northern Ohio. Within a very few years he had restored the topsoil and brought these abandoned farms back to fertility.

He started with land whose topsoil was little to none, whose only crop was poverty grass, whose natural springs had been dry for at least fifty years. In two years the springs were running again. In three years he was getting good yields of corn and oats.

He tells how this was done in Malabar Farm (1948), Out of the Earth (1950), and From My Experience (1955). These are well worth reading for anyone interested in arresting topsoil runoff, and restoring topsoil. These books are also available used -- try American Book Exchange Search.

The Graham plow -- a chisel plow designed to break a hardpan clay -- was the key to his success.

Bromfield could see that rainfall was running off the land instead of soaking into the soil. Digging down he found the reason -- a layer of compressed clay just below the surface. He knew that the land had been cultivated for many years with the moldboard plow, which turns the top layer of soil over on itself. He realized that over many years the downward pressure of the plow share on the clay-based soil had formed this impervious layer (the so-called "plow sole") which prevented rainwater from going further down. So the water could do nothing but run off, carrying topsoil with it.

The chisel plow was well adapted to break this plow sole. Bromfield wrote that the first passes over the dead fields with this plow, drawn by a large tractor, made a noise like thunder as the hard layers of clay were breaking up. Then he planted sweet clover, whose roots go deep and later decay, adding organic matter to the barren soil. Later Bromfield used a large rotary tiller to turn cover crops into the soil without creating the fatal plow sole.

Bromfield was very well off financially, from sale of his many novels. His farm enterprise eventually paid its own way, but the project would have been impossible for anyone without substantial resources.

Use of the Graham-Hoehme chisel plow (along with other useful topics) is well described in On Creating Fertile Soil.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), February 26, 2000.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ