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Nature-Study Agriculture 



Behavior 

 of different 

 varieties 

 of the same 

 crop 



Fallowing 



How it 

 makes a 

 better crop 

 possible 



Summer 

 fallowing 

 in the West 



Leaching 



Certain varieties of each of these crops are better 

 adapted to a dry climate than other varieties of the same 

 crop. For example, durum wheat, which was brought 

 from the semiarid plains of the Volga in Russia, has 

 proved itself to be an excellent dry-farm wheat, and in 

 some sections little else is grown. In Arizona a plant 

 called the " tepary bean," growing wild and used as food 

 by the Indians, has been found to bear well where other 

 beans would fail for lack of water. 



" Fallowing " is a method of allowing the soil to ac- 

 cumulate more than the ordinary supply of water and 

 plant-food material before a crop is planted. There is 

 in the ground a great deal of plant-food material that 

 is not in soluble form so that the crops can absorb it. 

 But much soluble food material is constantly being made 

 from the humus and the minerals of the soil. This will 

 accumulate if the ground is plowed, allowing air to enter 

 it, and if no weeds are permitted to grow for a season. 



In the dry farming regions of the West, plowing for 

 summer fallow is done late in the fall or early in the 

 spring. The land is left bare till the following fall, and 

 it is kept free from weeds. It is then usually sown to 

 winter wheat, thus missing a crop during the year of 

 the summer fallow. This is particularly the practice on 

 the Pacific Coast. While the land is being fallowed in 

 regions that will have summer rainfall, it should be 

 harrowed after each rain to prevent packing at the 

 surface and consequent loss of moisture. 



There is much less loss to the soil by leaching in a 

 dry region, of course, than in a region of heavy rainfall ; 

 but where the ground is dry, much of the humus 



