DIVIDEND IN DEPTH

[Music] here is the universal Lifeline the Farms of the whole wide world tended by men who live with the soil in every climb and country upon lands like these we depend for sustenance and to those whose toil provides food for the Earth's Millions we owe a boundless debt so to Farmers everywhere this film is dedicated in the hope that it may prove to be of help and profit to them and I believe this picture will be of help if it persuades the farmers to follow the ideas we're going to present uh but let me tell you this a farmer is not an easy man to convince in the old time villex if you remember he used to be pictured uh oh uh something like this [Music] but nobody believes that anymore because the truth is today he's a great deal more apt to look like [Music] this and anybody who tries to put something over on the modern farmer is liable to end up with the short end of the stick today farming is the world's biggest business and the farmer is a smart practical intelligent businessman when he buys something you can be pretty sure he's getting his money's worth and it's exactly that quality of common sense that I want to appeal to now now here's a [Music] [Applause] farm a good Farm the crops are fine the cattle are fat the farmer and his family are prosperous and happy but something could happen to this good farm and it could happen in an alarmingly short [Music] time how oh that's an easy one and you know the answer before I say another word the soil the top soil goes and the farm pretty much goes with it we all know that and we've all seen it happen too many times well why where's the villain in this piece I'll tell you right here this layer of thick hard compound underlying the few inches of top soil it's called by different names depending upon its type and locality a hard pan plow pan plow soul but what it's called really doesn't matter it's the effect the result that's important and the result isn't good now where' it come from well in most sections we made it sure how' we make it well to find that out let's go back to the beginning and get the whole story when our forefathers first began farming all the land was virgin land and all the soil was Top Soil so to speak as deep as a man could dig there was no pan there [Music] and so when a seed was planted this is what happened of course a plant needed the same four vital elements then that it needs now Sun air water and soil [Music] well the sun was warm the air was Airy and the water was wet and the soil man it was wonderful but thousands of years it had been preparing itself sustaining itself with the vegetation that bloomed and died giving its foliage to the top Earth for cover and its roots to the subsoil for natural humus so there was plenty of plant nourishment and when it rained the water seep down and down to where it was stored for use when maybe there was a long dry spill there was a natural reservoir of moisture to supply The Roots as they grew there was living room for the roots too they could go as deep as they wanted to [Music] yes a plant had everything in those days minerals nutrients and above all the right kind of soil soil with tilth that allowed the the right natural kind of development that grew the great crops that fed a growing world but uh then what happened why isn't all this still going on well let's see and what had been virgin land people settled down they built homes and stayed in one [Music] place naturally that meant they were farming the same piece of ground year in and year out as this went on the silt and smaller particles of Earth sifted down to the bottom of the plow dep this formed a kind of hard layer it built up as the process continued [Music] and the layer was packed down by the constant pressure and rubbing action of the plow of course when the giant wheels of mechanical farm implements moved in they did the same thing much faster and with the added packing power of Greater weight [Music] another thing animals they had to be there they had to move around and their continual treading of the Earth had a compressing effect that helped along the formation of the path [Music] [Applause] [Music] so the first thing you know there'd be a thick cement-like layer right under the top few inches of an entire [Music] Farm now uh what does that mean so far as the farmer's plants are concerned well a number of things to begin with when seeds become plants and start to put out roots they need room to grow but here the pan stops some cold and that'll stop anything cold [Music] so they have to reach out laterally and that's bad because obviously there isn't room The Roots get in each other's way furthermore what they're reaching out for mostly is moisture well they certainly can't find it because with that pan there just as many there's no storage space for it nor are there enough of the minerals and other Foods The Roots need they've been depleted by The Continuous harvesting of crops how about the top soil well that's not good either you see the top soil Works in a way just like the roots when it begins to dry out it draws moisture up from below if there is any but here the pan is blocked off the natural Storehouse so there isn't any moisture so not only is is the top soil made dry and nonproductive it literally blows away but uh how about if it rains well then the water penetrates as far as the pan but it can't get down into the subsoil and be stored for future use so on a level surface pools form which tend to filter down silt and tiny particles add to the pan and on a slope the combination of pan and water is just as bad here you get runoff taking with it precious top soil even Contour farming and terracing can't prevent that although these good farming practices are fine where they're applicable they can't solve the problem of hard pan by themselves well so far I've painted a pretty Grim picture haven't I at least I hope I have well I meant to because it's a grim situation and the tough part is that there's nothing local about it this isn't something that just struck playay County Missouri EMT County Michigan and sanwen Valley in California South Africa or Manitoba Canada no pan condition exists in many parts of the world in varying degrees with the population increasing as it is and with hundreds of thousands more to be fed each year it holds alarming implications for the future for the country as well as the individual farmer because if we allow our soil to go to pot we let our crop production go right along with it now recognizing the danger of the situation the question is what do we do about it fortunately there's an answer a sound simple practical answer that makes sense to anybody that is break up the pan by sub tillage break it up by three-dimensional farming put this invaluable Third Dimension to work as a new fertile area that will conserve your top soil and give new increased fertility to your land um I just mentioned the threedimensional farming now what does that [Music] mean it means that in addition to the length and the breadth of the land the two Dimensions that we've always worked we're now adding a third death [Music] and it's this depth that does the trick this third dimension that revitalizes your worn out top soil and creates new root zones to the depth our ancestors found when they first broke ground and vegetation is introduced into the newly open depth tapping a new store of nutrients water joins of mineral plant foods and circulates freeing bacteria to make deep plentiful humus of course fertilizer may be added to this subsoil as plants grow vigorously and The Roots extend freely with plenty of room they go down in search of moisture and they find them in ample abundance in the richness of Plenty that lies in the third dimension of upto-date scientific farming and now the big question is how do we do it and the answer to that isn't hard to find the answer lies in the ample power of track type tractors and the right deep tillage tools now available to eliminate hard pan wherever it may be whatever its depth and formation the basic tool perhaps is a subsoiler easily attached it penetrates to depths of 24 in or more [Music] as it moves through the ground it works like [Music] this the subsoiler with a sweep is another sure method of fracturing other stubborn pan [Music] the heavy duty chisel is a proven method of deep Dage valuable for depths of from 9 to 14 [Music] in the spring shank cultivator provides wider coverage and F fter operation in those cases where extreme depths are not required so no matter where the farm or what the underlying pan condition there is a scientifically designed tool for every farmer who wants to add a Priceless Third Dimension to his land now farming in three dimensions isn't just a dream we hope to see come true in some vague distant future this is going on right now in Mississippi and other parts of the Southern United States for instance hard pan is yielding to the forward-looking farmers who have adopted sub tillage farming not as a way of farming but as the way of farming in MidWest America plow pan is being broken up and made useful in the same way and in the Far West sub tillage is knocking out hard pan and has for years made possible many of the astounding crops of this area the same modern methods have been effective in Mexico Canada and many other areas of the world well there's the pattern for the future the future prosperity of the farmer and the future vital productivity of our soil as you've seen it's a pattern in three dimensions length breadth and depth there are dividends in debth there's protection for the world against want and protection for the farmer against most of the problems that beset him protection against loss of his top soil against poor root development against wind erosion runoff in sub tillage lies security for the farmer the security of the Assurance of all good years with your Storehouse of nutrients bacteria and moisture There's real security real prosperity and real dividends in depth for the world and the farmer it's waiting for you in third dimensional farming it's not a way to farm it's the way to farm and you don't have to take my word for it [Music] I love that third [Music] dimension for