62 PLOWING 
If soil is not occupied with growing crops, then 
Nature starts the weeds and grasses to occupy and 
cover the soil, and from this an important lesson is 
to be learned in successful soil cultivation. Keep your 
soil occupied with some useful crop. It takes as much 
plant food to grow weeds as to grow corn. Then why 
not plow or stir our ground after a crop is removed 
and plant to some crop of fertilizing value, and secure 
the great benefits of weed eradication, soil stirring, or- 
ganic and fertilizing matter. 
It is said that “tillage is a manure,” that “ frequent 
tillage is our best and cheapest manure,” that “tillage 
and manure are one and the same thing.” 
Old Rome was once noted for its high state of agri- 
culture, and the old Roman farmer plowed his land 
never less than three, and some times nine times for a 
single crop. And after the dark ages the Flemish 
farmer was a strong believer in frequent pulverization 
of the soil. And upon this principle England has con- 
structed an agriculture that reclaimed her worn-out soil 
and made it increase its productive power nearly four- 
fold. 
Plowing and stirring the soil mixes the organic matter 
with the minerals in the soil, affords better ventilation, 
gives the soil better ability to store up and deliver 
moisture to the growing crops, and gives more room 
for the plant roots to perform their proper functions. 
There is a time to plow and a right and a wrong way 
to plow. 
The plowing or stirring of ground, no matter what 
