CH. V] 



Effect of Hoeing 



87 



Table II. Effect of hoeing on moisture content and 

 temperature of soil^ 



Hoeing reduces the temperature and economises the 

 water supply of the soil on hot sunny days, but it seems 

 to have no such effect in cold sunless weather. 



In our country it is doubtful whether constant hoeing 

 would be worth doing on a farm for the sake of saving 

 water. In experiments in Illinois there was no advan- 

 tage in systematic hoeing, nor was there in some of the 

 other States^. But in drier climates the gains in soil 

 moisture are more pronounced : it is customary to send 

 out the disk harrows and start surface cultivation 

 directly a shower of rain has fallen, and before the land 

 has had time to dry up again. This is the central idea 

 of "dry farming." 



Under moister and cooler climatic conditions probably 

 the chief effect of hoeing is to keep down weeds. This is 

 indicated by an interesting experiment that has several 

 times been made, but not with sufficient exactness in 

 this country, in which a crop is grown (a) without any 



^ For another illustration see Cockle Park Bulletin, No. 26, 1917, p. 84. 

 ^ See Illinois Bulletin, No. 181, p. 582; also U.S. Dept. of Agric. Bureau 

 of Plant Industry Bulletin, No. 257. 



