OTHER AIDS TO FAEMING 163 



increases in importance the longer our soils are 

 subjected to cultivation. New soils will grow 

 crops with little cultivation, and even the char- 

 acter of the cultivation upon these soils is unim- 

 portant. But our older soils have lost their loose- 

 ness and organic matter content, and moisture 

 holding capacity, and so the cultivation of crops 

 growing upon them becomes a definite science that 

 must be practiced to insure success in crop produc- 

 tion. 



When the author in his youth cultivated corn 

 upon his father's pioneer farm, planted between 

 the stumps of the newly cleared soil, it did not 

 much matter whether his old double shovel plow 

 with shovels as large as the blade of an old fash- 

 ioned spade, plowed into the soil a half inch or 

 six inches in depth, for the soil was so loose and 

 full of fertility that it produced a wilderness of 

 corn, no matter whether it was cultivated or not. 

 But that kind of cultivation practiced upon the 

 same land now with the same kind of a cultivator, 

 would prove disastrous to the corn crop. 



The successful cultivators for our lands, long 

 subject to cultivation and poorly fed, are those 

 with which we can give shallow and level cultiva- 

 tion, enough to kill weeds and give the one to two 

 inch soil mulch. 



We do not emphasize enough the importance of 

 cultivation. We are content if we cultivate our 

 corn and vegetable crops three or four times, 

 which is not enough. There are times, as in 

 periods of droughts, when we should keep the cul- 

 tivators moving until crops are safe from the on- 

 slaught of dry weather. 



