PLOWING 133 



the farm or the organic matter cannot be turned 

 under successfully and in a manner that insures 

 success in growing crops. 



For forty years the average depth of plowing 

 in North Carolina was four inches and the aver- 

 age of corn grown in this time was fifteen bushels 

 to the acre. The government experimental farms 

 for the year 1912 plowed three thousand acres a 

 greater depth and secured forty bushels to the 

 acre. 



In the Dakotas, where wheat is extensively 

 grown, mostly by the large ranch farmers, plow- 

 ing is mostly done by the steam and gasoline 

 tractor, pulling plows with a large number of 

 bottoms, and shallow plowing from three to four 

 inches is practiced with the result that a wheat 

 crop is secured only in seasons of plenty of mois- 

 ture, and even then such crops are not secured that 

 would be if deeper plowing was practiced, and 

 money in wheat grown under such conditions is 

 made by putting out a large acreage at the lowest 

 expense for planting and harvesting. If the 

 growing season be dry, failure results. Yet ex- 

 periments in that region with deeper plowing have 

 proven that if the soil was plowed deeply and 

 worked with the end of moisture conservation in 

 view, greater crops would be secured in sea- 

 sons of plenty of moisture, and paying crops even 

 secured in dry seasons, and such crops secured 

 that would pay the small farmer to grow wheat 

 and would make available the fertility locked up 

 in the soil stratum lying below the present three or 

 four inches of soil generally broken up, and this, 

 to some extent, would relieve the situation of ex- 



