42 THE OLIVER PLOW BOOK 



ing because they were told that it was impossible to 

 disk or harrow too much. A winter's freezing is the 

 only successful treatment for rectifying the evil done by 

 plowing a dry, clay soil lacking in humus and within the 

 limit of abundant rainfall and planting the crop. 

 Farmers who live in climates where there is no oppor- 

 tunity for freezing can ponder with a great deal of 

 profit upon this problem. 



It is common knowledge that a soil plowed wet will 

 dry out more rapidly than unplowed soil. Plowing wet 

 clay has the same effect that plowing a wet sand soil has 

 as far as the drying out is concerned but with entirely 

 different results. Clay, being of a plastic nature and 

 sticking close together, is puddled by wet plowing. It is 

 turned over in a closely compacted manner so that the 

 top drys out first leaving a slower drying process for the 

 bottom of the furrow. This naturally means that 

 avenues of escape must be formed for the moisture below. 

 These avenues will appear at the place of least resistance 

 in the soil. These places are caused by the action of 

 the mouldboard in turning over the soil. The result is 

 a cloddy formation at the bottom of the seed bed which 

 locks up the soil fertility in the clods, interferes with the 

 upward trend of capillarity and makes absolutely im- 

 possible a final preparation of the seed bed. The plow 

 mouldboard working in wet clay performs exactly the 

 same operation as a brick making machine does in 

 molding the clay into bricks, hence in the handling of 

 clay soils the plowing must be done at a season of the 

 year when clods will not be formed. 



When one considers that clay soil holds moisture 

 longer than any other type of soil it is obvious that clay 



