TENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X 559 



MAKES FARM WORK EASIER. 



Gives a longer season in whicti to work. Gives long rows from fence 

 to fence. No turning at point rows or in the mud. The mellow soil works 

 easier. Can cultivate more regularly. Weeds are more easily destroyed. 

 Makes the use of modern heavy farm machinery possible because of the 

 long rows and drier ground. Heavy loads can be hauled to and from the 

 field. Does away with open ditches and bridges in the fields. Fields are 

 put in a cleaner and healthier condition. 



IMPROVES MEADOWS AXI3 PASTX'RES. 



By making the soil warmer and sweeter better grasses can be grown. 

 Coarse wild slough grasses die out. Prevents "heaving" or freezing out 

 of tame grasses and winter wheat and rye. It does not pay any better to 

 raise wild grasses than scrub stock. 



MAKES F.\RMIKG A CERTAINTY. 



Every farmer who cultivates a low, wet farm that is not tiled knows that 

 he is gambling on the seasons, playing a game of chance with the weather, 

 the most changeable, unreliable and irresponsible factor that we have to 

 deal with. He begins in the spring with an if: "If I have a good season." 

 If it rains at planting time his seed may rot in the ground. If his corn 

 does come up it will be the little yellow where he has planted big white. 

 If it rains at cultivating time the weeds will take his corn. Tile drain- 

 age is practically insurance of good crops. It makes the soil warm and 

 mellow, and deep; protects against drouth; lengthens the season; pre- 

 vents surface washing; increases the fertility; makes the work easier and 

 pays better than any other investment within reach of the farmer. 



SOILS AND THEIR DRAINAGE. 



BY F. R. LYFORD, COUNTY SUB^^:YOR. 



(Before Worth County Farmers' Institute.) 



The soil is the farmers' business capital. He has exchanged a certain 

 sum of money for it, or come into possession of it by inheritance, and must 

 now look to its products for returns. The soil becomes a receptacle for 

 his money, and a field for intelligent labor, and presents to the farmer 

 the various problems connected with soil culture and its relations to profit 

 and loss. 



Good husbandry strenuously insists on a thorough preparation of the 

 seed bed, and an intelligent after cultivation of the plant. It also demands 

 a wise and economic use of the products of the soil, be they grains, forage 

 or fruits. The end to be sought in all this is — that the farmer may 

 receive a profit over all and still have his capital, the soil, intact and un- 

 impaired. One of the well recognized means of bringing about this grati- 

 fying result — making the farm pay — is to remove the surplus moisture 

 from the soil. By surplus is meant more than is needed, and the moisture 



