THE CULTUKE OF FARM CROPS. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



-CULTIVATING CROPS. THE EFFECT UPON THE SOIL 

 AND UPON THE GROWTH OF THE CROPS. 



The cultivation of crops during their growth is not by 

 any means the least important mechanical process for the 

 improvement of the soil. Although it is a temporary pro- 

 cess, and is used for a special purpose, yet its results are 

 quite as permanent in improving the land as any other pro- 

 cess which can be used to gain the same effect. Every far- 

 mer who reads and studies the literature of agriculture, has 

 learned that the culture of root crops has a beneficial effect 

 upon the land. The farmer who grows a good crop of corn 

 by means of thorough cultivation of the soil during the 

 growth of it, know that the following oat crop is benefited 

 by it, and yields better for the work which has been done 

 the previous year. These are simply the necessary results 

 of the frequent stirring of the soil by which the contributions 

 of all the atmospheric agencies are secured to add to the 

 amount of available plant food ; and while the growing crop 

 is benefited, a surplus remains for the next crop. 



Summer fallowing, or the frequent working of the bare 

 soil during the growing season, was formerly considered an 

 effective means of improving the soil. This mechanical op- 

 eration consisted in plowing, harrowing, cross plowing, and 

 repeated harrowing. The effect was to destroy weeds, and 

 to pulverize the soil so that the air and the atmospheric 

 moisture might contribute to it whatever they could, and 

 also by their chemical action develop the fertility which 

 was latent in it. The operation was no doubt a useful one, 

 but it w^as thought, in time, that the advantages accruing 

 from it were gained at too great a cost; and the loss of a 

 crop was too great a price paid for the benefits received. 

 This truth was finally accepted, and the growth of a culti- 

 vated crop was substituted for the bare fallow. Certainly 



