708 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Fall plowing should be disced as soon as dry enough, in the spring, so 

 as to break the crust and keep the soil from baking and becoming hard 

 and lumpy and out of condition. 



If the ground gets packed by rains before planting time it should be 

 loosened with the disc before seed is placed in the ground, as corn needs 

 a loose porous seed bed. 



Do not start the planter till the ground is in first-class condition, and 

 do not be afraid of working the ground too much. The nearer ground 

 can be gotten into garden condition the better will be the yield of corn. 



Frequent stirring of the surface warms the soil. At one of our experi- 

 ment stations, by a thermometer test, it was found that a piece of cold 

 ground cultivated with the disc was much warmer than another along- 

 side which had not been stirred at all, and this fact is surely a good argu- 

 ment in favor of frequent stirring of the soil, as corn in the early stages 

 of its growth needs all the warmth that can be obtained for it. 



In conclusion I will say that "in a nutshell" the way to obtain a good 

 seed bed is to have good soil, well plowed, followed by plenty of work 

 with harrow, disc, float or other implements, and mixing the whole thing 

 with brains. 



THE MORNING-GLORY. 



Wallaces' Farmer. 



Morning-glory and bindweed, which is frequently mistaken for morning- 

 glory, belong to a class of weeds which spread from the root as well as 

 from the seed. Cuting off the tops even at the very surface of the ground 

 does not kill them. The ordinary shovel plow cultivator, while killing 

 them in one place, is very apt to plant them in another by carrying the 

 underground rootstocks from one part of the field to another on the 

 shovel. 



This is one of a most difficult class of weeds to manage. They can be 

 killed out by strangulation; that is, by preventing the leaves from having 

 access to the air. The rootstocks, not being fed, will necessarily die. 



They usually give the greatest trouble in the corn field, and when the 

 field becomes foul give very serious trouble in wheat or oats that follow 

 corn. They can best be attacked in the corn field by a thorough prepara- 

 tion of the seed bed and shallow cultivation. The tools used should be 

 such as would shave them off just below the surface of the ground and 

 leave them on the surface near where they grew. A surface cultivator, or 

 what are known as "glory" blades, and similar devices, that can be 

 attached to any cultivator, is the best thing to use where the field is 

 infested with morning-glories. 



When the time comes that farmers have their fields sheep-tight and 

 hog-tight the morning-glory problem will cease to vex us; for either sheep 

 or hogs, if given the opportunity, will strangle them more surely and 

 cheaply than any other process we know of. Some thirty years ago we 

 broke up a bottom farm, a portion of which was badly infested with 

 morning-glories. We made that portion of it a hog pasture, and while the 



