Winter Meeting. lyi 



Mr. Furgason. — In a field of sixteen acres which was very steep 

 nothing- but corn had been grown for sixteen years and all this time 

 it had been cultivated with a bull-tongue plow. We began using a 

 hill-side plow which in turning left a smooth surface and nothing to 

 hold the water and in two years had gulleys that a horse couldn't 

 jump. I believe that the little furrows of the bull-tongue allowed the 

 water to spread out, but with the turning plow big furrows were left 

 and washed. In an old orchard the dirt was thrown up to the trees 

 like a mound and next year plowed away from the trees, thus leveling 

 the ground. 



J. A. Orr. — Water will cut our hard flint soils unless they are 

 filled with humus. Humus takes up the water like a sponge, but if 

 the humus gets used up the water tears out the soil. If the ground is 

 kept open and porous the water will sink in, therefore, we must use 

 clover and cow peas to get humus which holds the water and lets it 

 out in dry weather. 



L. A. Goodman. — In cultivation we lose sight of one important 

 matter, that is of rotation. We find that in this Ozark land the soil 

 burns out with thorough cultivation. We have adopted this plan. In 

 the fall we plow as shallow as we can and turn up the earth as rough 

 as possible and continue this plowing all winter. This gets the land 

 ready for sowing clover or cow peas next spring. If the ground is 

 planted with cow peas for one season we then have the best of con- 

 ditions for seeding clover the following spring. In some parts of the 

 orchard we leave this winter-plowed land alone and let weeds grow 

 for cover crop. This is the cheapest cover crop we can get. In our hun- 

 dreds of acres of orchard we cannot easily treat all alike so allow the 

 weeds to grow on parts of it each year. Where the trees are in bear- 

 ing we run the mower to cnt the weeds. Part of this winter plowing 

 we leave for summer fallow, part we plant to corn and part to cow 

 peas. We leave the orchard in clover only two or three years. The 

 ground that washes we winter plow and leave rough with a weed 

 mulch plowed under which helps to keep it from washing. We could 

 not plow some of the rocky land at first very well, but after the winter 

 plowing it can be broken without any difficulty. Owing to the rota- 

 tion of cow peas, corn, Aveeds, summer fallow and clover we have the 

 land in good condition. Turn the clover after two years, not before. 



Mr. Furgason of Howell county. — When we left off cultivating 

 and let the weeds grow for mulch we had fifteen or eighteen inches 

 growth on the trees. 



W. A. Gardner. — I came to a point Avhere I could not plow, then 

 I gathered Japanese clover around the trees and had the best crop 



