48 MISCELLANEOUS FARM SUBJECTS 



by the crop, and winter grazing is provided. In plowed land prop- 

 erly handled the loss of plant food is less than in unplowed land; 

 more plant food may be produced and more can be stored. In case 

 a cover crop is used the loss of plant food is slight. 



An objection is sometimes urged that fall-plowed soil becomes 

 saturated with water during the winter and remains wetter and colder 

 later in the spring than land left unbroken in the fall. This is true 

 only upon land not sufficiently drained and where the breaking is 

 shallow. Water passes through deep breaking readily, and with rea- 

 sonable drainage it is ready for planting earlier than lands broken 

 in the spring. 



With deep breaking and an abundance of humus it will be pos- 

 sible to dispense with many terraces and yet have no washing of the 

 soil. Terraces are seldom required on the steepest hillsides of the 

 North. Deep freezing opens the soil for the absorption of the rain. 

 When land is nearly level, with a stiff subsoil, it should be flat- 

 broken, but left in ridges or narrow lands about 5 or 6 feet wide, 

 suitable for planting, with a dead furrow between. This provides 

 winter drainage and keeps the pulverized soil out of the water, which 

 is important even if unbroken. 



Faulty Methods of Cultivation. Some of the methods of cul- 

 tivation, while effective in killing weeds, are not the best that could 

 be used for the conservation of soil moisture or for controlling the 

 movements of water-soluble salts in the soil, and are often positively 

 harmful to the crops growing upon the ground. One of the methods 

 is the common practice of running the plow close to the row, throw- 

 ing the earth away from the plants, and leaving the furrows open 

 one or more days. When this practice is followed, if the crop has 

 reached considerable size, with ample leaf surface and strong root 

 development, and if the weather is hot and drying and the soil 

 moisture at all scanty, the crop is quite certain to show the bad 

 effects of this method of cultivation, by the curling of the leaves, 

 as a result of cutting off all roots on the side of the row to the depth 

 the plow has run; and the injury is often so marked and great 

 that it is distinctly recognized that the cultivation must not be 

 done on both sides of the row on the same day. The loose soil 

 thrown into the middle of the row soon loses most of its moisture; 

 the sides of the furrow next to the row and the bottom also dry 

 out very rapidly in the hot sun, so that when the furrow is turned 

 back it is filled with a layer of dry, loose earth, into which new 

 roots must develop to take the place of those cut away; and on 

 top of this layer of dry earth is deposited the moist soil of the sec- 

 ond furrow, which in turn loses its moisture rapidly, as does the 

 firm surface of the bottom of the new furrow. It often happens 

 that before new roots have had time to develop into the loose soil 

 formed by the plowing the same operation is repeated on the oppo- 

 site side, and thus the crop receives a very severe check to its growth 

 by the double root pruning which this form of cultivation effects. 



For many crops it is quite certain that the flatter cultivation, 

 instead of the ridge-and-furrow form so much used, would better 



