Tillage and Its Purposes 139 



soil most favorable to the growth of the crops cultivated, 

 and if this is properly done there can be no weed growth 

 provided the cultivation is done as rapidly and frequently 

 as it should be. Of course there may come times when 

 for frequent rains, the weed growth will get the start of 

 the cultivator, and heavier tillage will be needed to destroy 

 the growth, but these occasions will always be the excep- 

 tion with the careful and methodical farmer. 



For the breaking of the groimd the plow 

 '^^^ in some form is always needed. The evolu- 



for Tillage ^^^^ of the modern plow has been one of the 

 greatest in agricultural implements. In 

 general form it may be said that all turning plows are 

 ahke in having point, share, land-side and moldboard. 

 But all these differ in some respects in form with different 

 makers, and they vary also a great deal in their ease of 

 draft. For general turning of sod land, the modem sulky 

 plow on which the plowman rides, is the best development 

 of the turning plow. 



Formerly, and still in some parts of the country, much 

 use was made of the shovel plow, which simply tears up 

 the ground without turning the furrows. A modification 

 of the shovel plow is the bull-tongue still used to some 

 extent in the South. It is the cause of much of the waste 

 of the Southern hillsides which were scratched with it 

 while the clay below was left hard, and when the deluges 

 of rain that are common in the South come, the shallow 

 loose surface gets into a creamy state and must run down 

 hill and cause a gully to start, all of which could have been 

 prevented by deeper plowing. 



In recent years the disk plow has been invented and 



