LOCATION AND SOILS. 21 



food enough, for five crops, but be practically barren if 

 the fertilizing materials are locked up in impenetrable 

 clods. In tillage, the plow is followed by the harrow, 

 the clod crusher and the roller. Frost is one of the best 

 pulverizers, and it is a well recognized fact that we gen- 

 erally have poor summer crops succeeding mild winters, 

 a consequence of a want of frost action on the soil. 



Cultivation is the breaking and working of the soil 

 whilst the crop is growing; the tillage had previously 

 loosened and divided the particles of soil, but during 

 that period of time between the cessation of tillage and 

 the germination and vegetation of the plant the soil, in 

 part, reverts to its more natural solidity, and it is then 

 that cultivation comes in, as an endeavor to retain that 

 friability so necessary to the extension of the roots and 

 their ready nutrition ; thus, tillage must always be sup- 

 plemented by cultivation. To cultivate a crop means 

 to pursue that course with the soil which hastens the 

 development of the plants, and incidentally with this 

 comes in the destruction of weeds, which, allowed to 

 grow, starve the sown plants by robbing them of nutri- 

 ment. Labor given to tillage, except preparation for 

 broadcast crops, will be, to a large extent, wasted, unless 

 supplemented by such culture of the growing crop as 

 will preserve the earth in a loose and fresh condition. 

 Jethro lull, a well known agricultural writer, many 

 years ago said, "Tillage is manure," 



