CULTIVATION. 91 



plough. When heavy land is ploughed a little too wet, it 

 puddles, and the particles become closer packed than they 

 were and on drying it forms hard bricks which defy all 

 ordinary efforts to produce a fine tilth. Land which has 

 thus been puddled retains the bad effect for several crops. 

 The weeds turned up when ploughing soils in a damp 

 condition suffer little hurt, in fact by cutting them in a wet 

 condition their number may be increased rather than di- 

 minished. Too dry soil is turned up in large clods which 

 demand a great amount of labour to reduce to a fine tilth. 

 Roughly, a soil is ready to plough when the surface has a 

 dry appearance and is beset with fine cracks and when the 

 plough keeps fairly clean, turning over a ridge which can 

 be reduced to powder by light pressure. In ploughing up 

 berseem, the land should turn over in an unbroken ridge 

 the surface of which is finely cracked and not glossy and 

 sticky. 



Ploughing fallow with 18 % moisture gave a friable tilth. 



22% cloddy 



up berseem 18 % fairly friable tilth. 



24 % cloddy tilth. 







The tillage of the soil causes a great loss of moisture, 

 so that with excessive cultivation the soil may be so desic- 

 cated that all organised activity may be stopped and the 

 preparation of plant food brought to a standstill, arid 

 although a fine tilth may be got, yet the full benefit of the 

 action of the weathering agents in the open soil will be 

 lost. Hence too much ploughing may really do more harm 

 than good, and to prevent this while obtaining a fine tilth 



