364 Our Farming. 



I watched the result with more than usual curiosity, as the owner 

 of the undrained piece had tried to get me to put it in on shares. 

 I did not care to risk it. The winter and spring were unfavor- 

 able for wheat on undrained clay land. The tile-drained piece 

 yielded thirty-five bushels per acre of No. i wheat. The un- 

 drained piece brought ten bushels per acre of poor wheat. That 

 tile draining, which need not cost more than $30 per acre, brought 

 that year twenty-five bushels of wheat per acre. I notice this 

 fall that they again have wheat in those two fields. The un- 

 drained field is plowed in lands and thus partially surface- 

 drained. This may help it a little, but a good deal is left to luck. 

 Now, I am not particularly urging the underdraining of all heavy 

 soil ; it may often be as well to keep such in grass for stock, and 

 not drain ; but if you are intending to raise crops that are always 

 injured by over much moisture in the soil, on such land, why 

 then there is but one right thing to do. You know it just as 

 well as I, and if you don't do it, you need to give more earnest 

 heed to what you read in Chapters IX. and X. You may read 

 them and say, "Yes, that is sound," from now to the end of 

 time, but no good will come unless you put into practice what 

 you have learned. 



Did I stir you up any on tillage in Chapters XIII. and XIV.? 

 Did you think, "Now I never will put in another crop except on 

 thoroughly prepared soil ? I will make my wheat land fine and 

 firm enough to suit Terry after this. I will think, when I am 

 working my crops so much, that I am helping future crops as 

 well as present ones. That earth mulch business is sensible, and 

 I will never let a crust form and stay long on any corn or potato 

 field after this." Well, that is all good, but of itself it does not 

 amount to shucks. The question of importance is whether you 

 will really carry this out, whether you will put the knowledge 

 into practice. If you do not, then our text comes to you with 

 the words : ' ' We ought to give more earnest heed to the things 

 we have heard." 



If you haven't time to fit the land properly and thoroughly, 

 and tend to the tillage just when it should be done, why Chapter 

 VI. tells you how we found time to do all work thoroughly well 

 by not undertaking any more than we could reasonably expect to 

 accomplish. It has been well rubbed in in this book that half-way 

 work no longer 'pays, that average crops are not any longer a 

 source of profit. How on earth can you expect to make anything 

 if you can only half prepare your seed beds ; have to till your 

 crops when you can, instead of just when they need it; are so 

 driven that you cannot cut your clover hay until it has lost about 

 half its value, and so on? Oh, don't worry along, year after year, 

 trying to do a little of everything, with your work driving you to 

 death, and often necessarily slighted, as you are managing, and all 

 this just because your father did so. Why, bless you, your father, 



