30 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the fertility of our soil. He has so abundantly endowed the soil with 

 plant food that it will yet feed generations of people for thousands of 

 years to come. But future generations will have to study new problems 

 in relation to unlocking and obtaining the plant food that it still abun- 

 dant in our soil. 



TtLLAGK. 



We must now study the subject of tillage in an entirely different man- 

 ner from what we have done heretofore. If I were to ask this audience 

 what is the primary object in tillage doubtless many would say that it 

 is to keep down the growth of such plants as will interfere with the 

 growth of those which we wish to cultivate. I do not look upon tillage 

 as having this for its prime object, but rather as a means of more largely 

 making use of the plant food that it still abundant in our soil. 



PLOWING, 



is a work that is not being done today according to the requirements of 

 our times; we have too much crude, rough work in plowing, and in the 

 preparation of our soil for the crops w-e desire to grow upon it. In fact, the 

 great fault with our farming is that we are trying to work over too many 

 acres, and not working them sufficiently well. Greater agricultural pros- 

 perity in the future can only be realized by changing our extensive to the 

 more intensive system of culture. We need to study the construction 

 of agricultural implements — especially the plow. Two plows not long 

 since were brought to my own farm, and the claim made for one was that, 

 if properly adjusted, it would run a certain distance without any one 

 holding the handles. The same claim was not made for the other plow. 

 They were set to work, and one did, as was claimed, run through the soil 

 for quite a distance before it turned and went out of the soil. After 

 they had been used for a time the condition of the work was examined 

 after them, and it was found that the easy draft plow had not left the 

 soil in anything like the pulverized condition of the other, and, while the 

 second plow was rather harder on the team, and a little more work for 

 the man who held it. it was purchased for the reason that its work was 

 considered to be worth at least one hundred per cent more than the light 

 running plow. 



THE IMPLEMENTS FOLLOWING THE PLOW 



should be constructed upon the same principle for still further refining 

 and reducing the soil, the object being kept in mind that all of this work 

 of tillage must tend in the direction of getting at the wealth of plant 

 food that is underneath our feet. Cultivators and harrows of different 

 kinds should also be used, one after the other, so that when the soil is 

 prepared for a crop it will not be necessary to call upon the commercial 

 fertilizer to bear so large a part in the growing of this crop. I look upon 



TILLAGE IN ITS SECOND IMPORTANCE 



as controlling the moisture that must enter into the perfection and fullest 

 development of the crops we are growing. We cannot depend upon the 

 rainfall during the season of any growing crop to perfect it. It is no- 



