APPLES 



235 



selected a strip of about 10 acres as an 

 experiment, plowing five acres as deeply 

 as possible by the trench method. The 

 other five acres I plowed according to 

 the usual method of turning a furrow 

 about four or five inches deep. I then 

 planted corn, potatoes, pumpkins, melons, 

 sorghum, kaffir corn and millet. We 

 planted across the field, making the rows 

 run the short way so that each kind of 

 product would grow, half of it on the 

 deep plowing and half on the shallow. 

 In every case the deep plowing was bet- 

 ter, and in some cases it produced more 

 than twice what the shallow plowing pro- 

 duced. I therefore proved that by proper 

 cultivation it was profitable to grow crops 

 where often the efforts would otherwise 

 end in failure. It was not unusual for 

 travelers passing that field to stop and 

 inquire what made the difference in the 

 apparent size, health and vigor of the 

 same kind of products grown so closely 

 together Our answer was that we were 

 making experiments like Dr. Franklin, 

 who believed that a certain kind of plas- 

 ter would greatly improve the land for 

 the production of wheat but had some 

 difficulty in convincing his neighbors. He 

 therefore placed it on the land in the 

 form of large letters which read. "This 

 has been plastered." As the traveler 

 passed by he could see the white plaster 

 and read the letters. When the wheat 

 grew the soil on which the letters had 

 been placed produced greener, more vig- 

 orous and taller wheat than the other. 

 As the traveler passed by he could see 

 and read from the field of growing wheat. 

 "This has been plastered." 



Another experiment of a similar kind, 

 but with reference to trees, occurred at 

 .Tetmore. Kansas. A farmer in that 

 county for some offense had been placed 

 in jail to languish during the summer 

 until the autumn or winter term of court, 

 awaiting trial. Being accustomed to hard 

 labor, the confinement of the jail was 

 very irksome and he obtained permission 

 from the sheriff to cultivate the trees 

 that grew in the courthouse block. When 

 I visited that town I saw that the trees 

 in the community lacked vigor and most 

 of them were dying, but the trees in the 



courthouse block were green and vigor- 

 ous and making rapid growth. When I 

 asked the reason I was told that this man 

 had been given a horse, cultivator and 

 hoe. and that he spent half of every day 

 cultivating the trees, going over the 

 ground once or more each week during 

 the summer and autumn. The soil was 

 as fine as ashes, but little moisture es- 

 caped by evaporation; the roots of the 

 trees absorbed the retained moisture and 

 with it the plant food that was contained 

 in the soil. 



Tampbell System 



About the same time the government 

 established a branch experiment station 

 at Dodge City and obtained results simi- 

 lar to those described. The Campbell sys- 

 tem of dry farming is simply another 

 name for the system recommended by the 

 government experimenters, and which has 

 been proven by varied experiences to be 

 the system best adapted to semi-arid re- 

 gions. This system simply means deep 

 plowing, then cultivating, harrowing, roll- 

 ing, harrowing again, and repeating this 

 process at certain periods during the crop 

 season, and more especially after every 

 shower of rain. By this process, vast 

 wheat fields are now yielding their mil- 

 lions of bushels of grain, homes and or- 

 chards and groves are seen by thousands 

 where once was desert, and millions of 

 acres of land which were once nothing 

 but waste are producing wealth. 



Good cultivation causes the soil to ab- 

 sorb moisture. This is seen when we com- 

 pare a well plowed field with the roadway 

 by its side. We pass along the roadway 

 as a heavy rain is falling and we see that 

 the water which falls upon the plowed 

 field is being absorbed by the mellow 

 earth, while the hard surface of the road 

 is absorbing it very slowly, so slowly 

 that the ditches, trenches and wheel 

 tracks are full, carrying it away. That 

 which we see in the road during the rain 

 is true in some degree on the hard surface 

 soil of an uncultivated field, and in a de- 

 gree also, in a field of shallow plowing. 



MTiat CnltiTation Does 



Cultivation makes plant food available 

 by breaking up the harder chunks, clods 



