56 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



better established than the fact that shallow tillage and level ground 

 will produce a larger yield than deep tilling. The main difficulty, how- 

 ever, is that so far we have no entirely successful shallow tillage imple- 

 ments. No one implement nor method nor system will answer for all sea- 

 sons and circumstances. The safest rule to follow would be to till just 

 as shallow and keep the land just as level as is possible, at the same time 

 seeing that the corn is kept clean and a dust mulch is maintained on the 

 surface to prevent the evaporation of the moisture. To accomplish 

 this most profitably and cheaply will require at one time a very different 

 imiplement from that required at another time or season. Sometimes the 

 smoothing harrow or an implement like the Hallock weeder will suffice, 

 at other times nothing short of the ordinary cultivator will do. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. : Which would you recommend, drilling or planting, 



so as to cultivate both ways ? 



Dr. Waters : The experiments thus far made are conflicting on that 

 point, but they indicate that aside from the questions of keeping the corn 

 clean, etc., drilling is preferable. That is, you had better distribute your 

 plants, one in a place, along the row, than to bunch them together. 



Mr. : In land that is inclined to be wet, isn't it an ad- 

 vantage to hill the corn, throwing up the dirt very high ? Won't the ad- 

 vantage that will be to the land in drying it out overcome the advant- 

 ages in level cultivation? 



Dr. Waters: No, not at that season of the year. That is not a 

 season of the year when we suffer from excessive rains. 



Mr. : I mean for the good of the land afterward. 



Dr. Waters : In only very flat lands, yes. Those are limited in 

 Missouri. For very excessive flat lands, that would be the case. 



Mr. : It would put more life in the land, wouldn't it? 



Dr. Waters : Yes, it would aerate the land better. If the land is 

 rolling, it washes badly, and it would be a very serious mistake on that 

 kind of land. The hilling of the land used to be done with the ordi- 

 nary diamond plow. That has gone out of practice now. It was a 

 bad thing for conserving the moisture. It did not go very deep. That 

 old practice of throwing the soil up, whether the corn needed it or not, 

 was, of course, a bad way to grow corn, and I don't know but that we 

 are fortunate that the diamond plow has gone out of use ; but you take 

 some of these other implements in use now, and they throw up as much 

 dirt as the diamond plow, and pile it up unnecessarily. You will re- 



