Tillage. log 



corners tramped to death. I am careful to turn no wider furrow 

 than the share can fully manage. My plows will turn sixteen 

 inches wide, fairly well to look at after it is done, but they do 

 perfect work and more pulverizing at twelve or thirteen inches, 

 and I see that they are set so they go no wider. 



Now we come to cultivation. We harrow and work the 

 plowed land to make a good seed bed. Roots feed by contact 

 with the particles of soil. The finer these are, the more feeding 

 ground. There is more surface in a pound of shot than in a 

 pound of bullets. The mere making of the surface fine in which 

 the seeds are buried is not enough. For the best results it 

 should be pulverized all through the soil where the roots will go. 

 With the ground reasonably dry one can hardly overdo this mat- 

 ter. One more passing over after it is already well done may pay 

 better for the time spent than what you have done before. We 

 have implements now that do different kinds of work in this line 

 fast and well. One needs several. The Thomas smoothing har- 

 row stands first on my farm, used as above described, before soil 

 dries hard, or after a shower, when it is just dry enough. With 

 three horses and my weight and a heavy plank on three sections 

 (10 feet), it does some work. Next, I would place the cutaway 

 harrow or a disk. I rather prefer the former. Have both. These 

 are digging harrows, to use after ground is settled by heavy rain 

 or rolled down, or to make a seed bed on tough sod. They dig 

 and work without turning up the sod when ploughed well with 

 jointer arid rolled down. In this respect they are better than 

 spring tooth harrows and cultivators. The roller is indispensable 

 with me to mash clods which the harrow brings up. Alternate 

 rolling and harrowing, first with cutaway and then smoothing 

 harrow and then roller, and then back to cutaway again, etc., will 

 make a seed bed in time that is right. The Acme is a good sur- 

 face pulverizing harrow. It will not dig deep. After the corn 

 and potatoes are planted, then the smoothing harrow will keep 

 weeds from ever getting out of the soil, save the plant food they 

 would eat for the crop and save you hoeing by hand, and do it all 

 cheaply. This work must be done, of course, in time, then it will 

 pay grandly, and while you are killing weeds just as they sprout, 

 before they have harmed you, you are also letting air into the soil 

 by keeping the surface stirred, thus giving Nature every chance 

 to help your crop. After the corn and potatoes are up, so one 

 can follow the rows, then Breed's weeder, a very light smoothing 

 harrow, will do better than the Thomas to prevent weed growth 

 by constant stirring of surface and also to check evaporation in a 

 dry time. More particular directions for the use of these will be 

 found in chapters on potato culture. 



Next, the cultivators are used. As with the plows, so with 

 the cultivators : I would leave the sulky cultivators for the large 

 fields and cheap lands of the West. With a large, long field, one 



