50 WHEAT CULTURE. 



CHAPTER IX. 



GREEN MANURING AND PLOWING. 

 PLOWItfG-IH GREEtf CROPS. 



It is, probably, safe to say that no other mode of fer- 

 tilizing land either to preserve or restore productive- 

 ness is so effective and cheap as plo wing-in green 

 crops, such as clover, lucern, peas, buckwheat, and 

 some others, treated with liberal top-dressings of lime or 

 ashes just before plowing, and with plaster while grow- 

 ing. This practice not only supplies the soil with veg- 

 etable matter, but it tends to make it friable and porous, 

 so that the air can permeate freely, and allows the roots 

 of the plants to run and spread freely for their needed 

 nourishment. 



It lightens up, leavens the land, as it were, doing 

 much to prevent the evil effects of drouth by creating 

 and preserving a degree of moisture in the soil during a 

 dry time. Lucern, or Alfalfa, as it is called in some 

 sections, is even better than clover in the estimation of 

 those farmers who have used it, as it runs its roots deeper 

 than clover. The roots are also larger, and tend to sub- 

 soil culture, and when cut off eight to ten inches deep in 

 the soil by the plow, they leave it moist and porous to 

 that depth while decaying, and make a favorite bed for 

 the roots of the wheat plant. 



PLOWING PRAIRIE LAKD THE OLD WAY. 



At the time of our first becoming a settler in the 

 "Western States, the ordinary mode adopted by the pio- 

 neers for "breaking prairies" was with a heavy team 

 four to six yoke of oxen and a large "break-up plow" 

 that would turn a shallow furrow, twenty-four to thirty- 



