143 



SOIL CONDITIONS. 



To be successful the farmer must grasp the full im- 

 portance of doing all his work just at a time when the 

 condition of the soil is best adapted. The idea that by 

 plowing today we may get ten bushels of wheat to the 

 acre, when if we plowed the ground four days later we would 

 get fifteen bushels or vice versa seems rather ridiculous. 

 While this statement and the figures used, may in most 

 cases be a little strong, yet it is a fact that the average 

 yield of a field is frequently increased or decreased quite 

 a per cent by a few days variation in the time the work 

 is done. 



This is especially true with reference to cultivation. 

 We have in mind a case near Fremont, Nebraska, where 

 the 'phenomenal difference of fifteen to eighteen bushels 

 per acre was made by cultivating a part of the field before 

 a heavy rain of nearly five inches, and the balance of it 

 after this rain. The reason of this remarkable difference 

 was simply what we have been dwelling upon, the result 

 of retaining a large per cent of moisture in the soil mulch 

 by the cultivation after the rain, that was lost from the 

 balance of the field by rapid evaporation. This occurred 

 in July, and was the last cultivation preparatory to what 

 is called laying the corn by. The rain was a very heavy 

 one. The part of the field that was cultivated previous 

 to the rain was left with the thick compacted crust made 

 by the heavy fall of water, which resulted in dissolving 

 the loosened soil and settling it very close, thus leaving 

 the surface in the best possible condition for a rapid move- 

 ment of moisture to the surface and evaporation. Under 

 another head we have explained this more clearly. The 

 portion not cultivated previous to the rain was gone over 



