140 CAMPBELL'S SOIL CULTURE MANUAL 



TIME OF CULTIVATION. 



These illustrations show very plainly the difference 

 in results between shallow and deep cultivation, but they 

 also show another thing, and that is that the time of cul- 

 tivation is a very important thing. Deep cultivation will 

 certainly, under some conditions, facilitate the evapora- 

 tion and waste of the water, and sometimes very shallow 

 cultivation will have the same effect. The depth of the 

 cultivation may well be varied to meet conditions as 

 you find them. 



If you would secure the greatest possible benefit from 

 the labor given over to cultivation, you should first pro- 

 vide yourself - with some fine-toothed cultivator, so that 

 the soil may be all thoroughly fined, leaving the surface 

 of the firm soil beneath as near level as possible. Then, 

 great care should be taken to catch your ground in proper 

 condition. It is true there is but little time after a rain 

 that the ground is in the best possible condition. This 

 is the time when the free water has all percolated below, 

 and the soil to the depth which you wish to run your cul- 

 tivator, is simply moist neither very wet nor very dry. 

 In this condition the little particles seem to readily sepa- 

 rate, one from the other, then your stirred soil is com- 

 posed of an innumerable number of little, minute lumps, 

 forming a mulch that gives you the highest degree of 

 protection. A mulch made when soil is in this condition 

 will never blow. 



If the soil be too dry it breaks into large lumps, which 

 not unfrequently lie in such manner as to conduct the 

 air through the large spaces between them down to the 

 solid and firm soil beneath, causing much loss by evapo- 

 ration. It is needless to mention the difficulty arising 

 from cultivating soil that is too wet. When worked it 



