INTER-CROPPING OF CONTINUOUS CROPS 185 



cropping, especially as regards the wide drilling of the 

 tare and corn crops. One real difficulty which the 

 writer has met with is, that on clayey land, especially 

 in dry districts, and no matter how well the land may 

 be tilled prior to sowing the nurse crop, the soil is 

 apt to get hard. In this condition, the cultivator, 

 unless fitted with a single narrow paw, which only 

 scratches the soil, is very apt to tear up the top of the 

 surface of the land in clods, and unduly expose the 

 roots of the nurse crops. In other words a twelve 

 inch row on such soils is too narrow for inter-culti- 

 vation in anything approaching an effective or satis- 

 factory manner. 



This difficulty, in most instances, can be overcome 

 by a slight modification in the drilling of the crop. 

 Instead of sowing from every alternate shoot of, say, 

 a six inch corn drill, it is possible to block every 

 alternate pair of shoots, that is, the first pair will be 

 open, the second pair blocked, the third pair open, 

 the fourth pair blocked, and so on. By this means 

 there will be exactly the same number of rows of 

 corn as though every alternate shoot was stopped, but 

 between every two pairs of rows there will be a space 

 of 18 inches instead of 12 inches. The former 

 width is. sufficient to permit of inter-cultivation and 

 inter-cropping, the inter-crops being only sown in the 

 wide alleys, , that is, in the 18 inch space between 

 every two pairs of rows of the nurse crop. 



My experiments so far seem to indicate that 

 18 inches between the rows of corn is a little too wide, 

 but if a drill is used with the coulters 5 inches apart, 

 the " alleys " will then be only 15 inches, which is 

 wide enough for inter-culivation . 



As previously stated, the main object of inter- 

 cropping is to relieve autumnal and summer work 

 which would be necessary for the cultivation of oat 



