CEREAL CULTIVATION WESTERN AREA 393 



primarily to the practice of summer fallowing. This 

 practice, by laying the soil bare, no doubt does increase 

 the tendency ; but its most serious direct effect is the ex- 

 haustion of the humus. The permanent remedy for soil- 

 blowing is an increase in the quantity of soil humus. 



Some of the means of checking soil-blowing temporarily 

 have been given (383). It is important to keep the soil 

 coarse or lumpy at the surface (see Fig. 125). This is 

 practically impossible in sandy land, in which case such 

 implements of cultivation should be used as will leave the 

 surface as uneven or ridged as possible. If whole fields 

 of wheat are being blown out, cropping in strips may be 

 practiced. f The fields are divided into strips 5 rods or 

 more in width, and each alternate one sown with winter 

 wheat (or other cereal), and the unsown strips listed the 

 same fall. The listed furrows are not disturbed the fol- 

 lowing spring until the wheat in the cropped strips has 

 made sufficient growth to resist blowing, after which the 

 listed strips are given clean cultivation through the summer 

 (Thorn and Holtz, 1914, pp. 18-20). 



419. Burning the stubble is a practice too common on 

 the large grain farms, and is a cause of serious loss to the 

 soil. Heavy stubble is difficult to plow under, and burn- 

 ing is an easy way to get rid of it, but is also, in time, a 

 costly practice. The previous use of some other imple- 

 ment, as disk, drag, or mower, will usually put the stubble 

 ground in condition to be plowed, and the manurial value 

 of the decaying straw will exceed the cost of all extra 

 work, in its beneficial effects upon following crops. 



420. Crop burning or drying out occurs frequently on 

 land summer fallowed, in the uplands of the Columbia 

 Basin, during dry, hot periods. Often the burning can- 

 not be traced directlv to the weather conditions, and for 



