METHODS OF PLOWING 135 



advantage of fall plowing, in some cases, is that it 

 destroys wire-worms. Land for fall seeding should 

 be plowed, if possible, two or three weeks before 

 sowing. Lap-furrow plowing is preferable. Land 

 plowed in the fall may be benefited by being plowed 

 again in the spring before being seeded ; but usually 

 a good disking is sufficient. 



The Spring Plowing. Spring plowing should 

 be done early, before the days when a hot sun and 

 drying wind suck from the unplowed soil much of 

 the water that the crop could use to great advan- 

 tage. A soil may lose as much as twenty tons of 

 water per acre weeklv by being left unplowed late 

 into the spring. This is equal to 1.75 inches of 

 rainfall. Early plowing also dries and warms the 

 surface soil so that it may be planted early. Further- 

 more, the earlier soil is plowed, the more spring 

 rain it catches. If the land is covered with a catch 

 crop there are additional reasons for plowing it 

 early; the herbage will decay better, and if the 

 catch crop is one that lives over the winter, as rye, 

 it will be prevented from reducing the supply of 

 water in the soil by its spring growth. The popular 

 rule "Plow as early in spring as the ground works 

 up mellow'* epitomises the experience of many 

 generations of farmers. 



The exact time to plow in spring depends mostly 

 on the wetness of the soil. If the soil is light and 

 porous it may be plowed, oftentimes, two or three 

 weeks earlier than heavy soil on the same farm. 

 Not till the soil crumbles readily when turned up 

 in the furrow-slice is it in the best condition for 

 plowing. If it is turned over in clods there will 

 be trouble. The texture of a clayey soil may be 

 nearly ruined by plowing it once or twice when it 

 is wet; the soil is thrown into great clods which 



