38 FOR BETTER CROPS 



Where the crop is carted from the field, nearly half the nitro- 

 gen and humus-making materials are left in the roots and in the 

 bottoms of the stems and in the leaves and other portions of the 

 plants not obtained in gathering the green forage or the field- 

 dried fodder. 



The live stock secure sufficient toll from the crop to pay for 

 more than the one-fourth of the total manurial value finally lost. 

 Besides, feeding out a crop of forage makes live stock necessary, 

 and there is another compensation in the grain which must be 

 usually fed with the roughage, thus keeping also on the farm 

 more of the manurial value of the grains raised on the farm or 

 purchased. 



Live stock are great agencies for building up and conserving 

 soil fertility. When '"the pig roots off the mortgage," he has 

 also rooted greater value into the soil saved from the money 

 lender; and the cow has well-nigh usurped the "golden hoof of 

 the sheep" in many states because "she ships out, in the form 

 of golden butter, sunshine for dollars," leaving practically all the 

 fertility contained in her food to be returned to the soil. 



Preparation of the Grain Crops' Seed Bed — These grain 

 crops are generally good feeders, but they want to feed near the 

 surface as well as deeper down. They can send their water- 

 finding roots four or even six feet deep, but they know that the 

 richest part of the soil is the furrow slice and they want that in 

 the best possible condition to feed in. In most climates they 

 like to have the furrow slice a year old, so that its lower half 

 has had a year in which to become compact and well-knit 

 together. 



They like to have only the upper part of the furrow slice 

 loose to easily take in falling rain and to serve as a dust blanket 

 or dirt mulch to retard its wasting by evaporation from the sur- 

 face of the ground. Fall-plowed land is as a rule, therefore, 

 better than spring-plowed land. Corn and potato fields often 

 leave the soil in excellent condition for these grains. This is 

 true of fields in which the surface was stirred several times to 

 the depth of two or three inches the previous year. Thus the 

 lower part of the furrow slice is allowed to become compact, its 

 upper part is kept mellow and many weed seeds are brought into 

 the sprouting zone, the resulting plants from which are at once 

 destroyed. 



Gases of Advantage in Replowing in Spring — On very 

 heavy lands far to the north, in rare cases it is best to replow the 

 land in the spring to prevent its becoming too dense. 



In some climatic conditions in the dry plains regions, plowing 

 in the spring gives better yield than fall plowing. There the 

 evaporation into the dry atmosphere is so rapid, and the supply 

 of soil moisture is so meager that the whole depth of the furrow 



