THE ROLE THAT TILLAGE PLAYS 97 



soil and amount of spaces between these particles. 

 When these things are done, water more freely enters 

 and more of it is retained than otherwise would be the 

 case were these conditions not to be had. 



Tillage gets rid of weeds. Good farming can never be 

 of high quality if weeds are allowed to have their way ; 

 and they certainly have their way whenever tillage is 

 neglected or whenever plows and harrows and cultivating 

 tools are not constantly and consistently used. 



Why are weeds a menace to farming? For these rea- 

 sons : They steal from the soil food that should be kept 

 and preserved for cultivated plants ; they rob the soil of 

 its water, that should be held for useful plants ; they 

 crowd growing plants to their hurt (improved plants are 

 less hardy than weeds, for the latter have inherited the 

 ability to shift for themselves) ; they shade the land, 

 which works injury to many varieties which need all the 

 warmth and sunshine they can get. For these reasons, 

 weeds are a menace to cultivated crops and for these 

 reasons they should be driven from the land. 



Since food and drink are objects of constant thought 

 and solicitude and require you to labor day in and day 

 out so to treat the soil that both may be amply pro- 

 vided, why should weeds be spared : why consider them 

 in any other light than enemies of the disagreeable and 

 hateful sort? 



Here is an example: A field plante-1 to corn was divided 

 into two sections: on one section, after the second week, 

 weeds were allowed to grow, to contest with the corn for 

 supremacy: from the first section 82 bushels of shelled 

 corn for each acre were harvested, and from the second 

 section 17 bushels. The difference represented the hurt- 

 ful effects of the weed plants that grew in the corn. 



Here are just a few thoughts to remember: 



