158 FARM MECHANICS 



The original idea was to benefit the soil by breaking the 

 lumps. It may be of some benefit on certain soils for 

 this purpose, but the land should always be harrowed 

 after rolling to form a dust mulch to prevent the evap- 

 oration of moisture. Land that has been rolled and left 

 overnight shows damp the next morning, which is suf- 

 ficient proof that moisture is coming to the surface and 

 is being dissipated into the atmosphere. In the so- 

 called humid sections of the country the great problem 

 is to retain moisture. Any farm implement that has a 

 tendency to dissipate soil moisture is a damage to the 

 farmer. Probably nine times out of ten a farm roller 

 is a damage to the crop it is intended to benefit because 

 of the manner in which it is used. It is the abuse, not 

 the proper use of a roller, that injures the crop. 



CORN-PLANTER 



Corn-planters are designed to plant two rows at 

 once. The width of rows may be adjusted from about 

 32 to 44 inches apart. "When seed-corn is carefully 

 graded to size the dropping mechanism will feed out 

 the grains of corn regularly with very few skips. This 

 is one reason why most farmers plant corn in drills. 

 There are other cultural reasons which do not prop- 

 erly belong to this mechanical article. Hill dropping 

 is considerably more complicated and difficult. After 

 the feeding mechanism has been adjusted to the size 

 of seed kernels to be planted so it will drop four ker- 

 nels in a hill then the trip chain is tried out to see if 

 it is right at every joint. Dropping in hills is a very 

 careful mechanical proposition. An inch or two out 

 of line either way means a loss of corn in cultivating. 



In setting the stakes to go and come by, a careful 

 measurement of the field is necessary in order to get 



