10 The Bulletin. 



enough to permit it to make considerable growth before the dormant 

 period sets in ; otherwise, much of its benefit will be inevitably lost. 



SPRING PREPARATION, 



There is little gained by planting corn very early in the spring. 

 Thorough preparation of the land is entirely essential for best results, 

 and this preparation can hardly be given when corn is planted between 

 March 15th and April 15th. More thorough preparation and later 

 planting is good advice to follow. 



The disc harrow should be used on fall plowed land as early in the 

 spring as soil conditions will permit in order to loosen up and aerate 

 the surface. The disking may take the i)lace of plowing in some cases, 

 when the land should be disked some two or more times, with the disk- 

 ings some ten to fifteen days apart. After the last disking the land 

 should be gone over with a smoothing harrow in order to break aud pul- 

 verize any clods and smooth the surface preparatory to planting. 



When corn land is well prepared the crop is half cultivated, and this 

 first half of the cultivation can be much more easily and economically 

 given before the crop is pitched. Keep the harrow going and kill all 

 germinating weeds and grasses, and do not fear that half your crop will 

 be lost if you do not get it planted before May 15th, 



When it is necessary to plow land in the spring the plowing should 

 be done as early as practicable in order to conserve moisture, and as 

 late as possible in order to give the green manuring crop, except in case 

 of rye, a chance to make a large vegetative growth to be turned under. 



The green manuring crop, together with the old cotton or corn stalks, 

 should be thoroughly cut to pieces with a sharp disc harrow before 

 plowing under. When plowing, the furrow slices should be edged and 

 not inverted. If it is not too late in the season, the land should be 

 left in this rough plowed condition until after a good rain, when it 

 should be thoroughly disked and let lie for a week or ten days. Just 

 before planting the land should be gone over -with a smoothing harrow 

 as outlined above. 



In case spring plowing must be done on land without the green 

 manuring crop the harrow should follow closely behind the plow, be- 

 cause every farmer knows moist clods pulverize more easily than hard, 

 dry clods. Again, the more completely the clods are pulverized the 

 better the soil mulch forms and, consequently, the more moisture will 

 be conserved for the crop. 



CONSERVATION OF MOISTURE. 



The necessity for the conservation of moisture has been stressed as 

 much in the above discussion of the preparation of the seed bed as 

 though a group of farmers were being addressed in the arid West. Why 

 lay so much emphasis on this point when our lands are more frequently 

 too wet than too dry? Why conserve moisture in a State with over 

 fifty inches rainfall? 



