260 FARM CROPS 



the ground must be stirred so that when drilling is 

 done the seed will be covered evenly. The sulky 

 plows or the modern gangs are best, as they do good 

 work and completely cover all trash which may be 

 on the surface. If plowing must be delayed until 

 late on account of dry weather, or the fact that the 

 crops growing on the land cannot be removed until 

 just before seeding time, compacting must be done 

 in some way. This is best accomplished by the use 

 of a roller, drag, disk, smoothing harrow or some 

 such implement. Neglect of this brings more poor 

 wheat than any other one thing. Going over the 

 ground two or three times is not sufficient. The 

 work must be continued and, in some cases, the 

 ground will have to be gone over four or five times. 

 Ideal Seed Bed for Wheat. An ideal seed bed 

 for wheat or other small seeds should not be mellow 

 or loose to too great a depth, but rather the soil 

 should be mellow and well pulverized only about 

 as deep as the seed is planted. Below that depth 

 the soil should be firm and well settled, making a 

 good connection with the subsoil, so that the soil 

 water stored in the subsoil may be drawn up into 

 the surface soil. The firm soil below the seed, well 

 connected with the subsoil, supplies moisture to 

 the germinating seed and the young plantlet, while 

 the mellow soil above the seed allows sufficient 

 circulation of air to supply oxygen and favors the 

 warming of the soil, gathering the heat of the sun- 

 shine during the day and acting as a blanket to 

 conserve the soil heat, maintaining a more uniform 

 temperature of the soil during the night. The 

 mellow soil mulch above the seed conserves the 

 soil moisture, acting as a mulch to keep the moisture 

 from reaching the surface, where it would be 



