166 SOILS 



a shovel-tooth cultivator and smooth it off with 

 a spike- tooth cultivator afterward. Repeat this 

 with the latter tool often enough to keep a mulch 

 over the roots of the plants that will preserve 

 the coolness and water that have been lost to them 

 before. The results of a few extra cultivations in 

 a dry season, as seen in the corn bin or cotton 

 basket, are sufficient to convert any man to the 

 wisdom of mulch-tillage, even when weed-tillage 

 is not needed. 



HOW DEEP TO CULTIVATE 



Within ten or fifteen years there has been a very 

 decided movement in favour of shallow cultivation. 

 Experiments have shown quite conclusively that 

 there is as much value, so far as preventing the 

 escape of water is concerned, in two or three inches 

 of loose, surface soil as in four or five inches. This 

 pre-supposes, of course, that the tillage of prepara- 

 tion plowing and harrowing has been thorough 

 and timely so that the soil is loosened deeply and 

 pulverised completely. The result has been that 

 many of the old-fashioned, deep-working, hard- 

 pulling and root-cutting cultivators have been 

 relegated to the junk heap, and the shallow-working 

 coulter and spike-tooth cultivators occupy their 

 place in the tool shed. We do not hear so much 

 about "plowing out" crops as formerly they are 

 cultivated. There are stfll many unwieldy, plow- 

 like cultivators in use, especially in the cotton belt, 

 but they are fast disappearing. 



If the soil has been thoroughly loosened and 

 pulverised before the crop is planted there is no 

 need of stirring it more than three inches deep, 

 at the most, after that. Aside from the energy 



