GROWING GRAIN CROPS IN DRY AREAS 245 



This means that it will grow on the major portion of 

 the tillable area in the same. The best soils for this 

 crop are the clay loams of the benches that are sufficiently 

 supplied with sand to make them readily friable. Flax, 

 like other cereals, does not grow well on light sands or 

 coarse gravels, on cloddy soils, on those that cement 

 readily on the surface after rain or on alkali lands. 



Place in the rotation. Flax may be given any place 

 in the rotation where the conditions pertaining to growth 

 are suitable, but the crops furnished will differ greatly 

 with the rotation. The best crops will probably be ob- 

 tained from it when grown on land carefully' summer- 

 fallowed or after a cultivated crop, but land thus prepared 

 is usually devoted to the growing of a plant less rugged 

 than flax. Overturned sod, whether heretofore unbroken 

 prairie or other sod, furnishes an excellent preparation 

 for flax. Because of this, it is very frequently made the 

 first crop on new breaking, and for the further reason 

 that it is the safest grain crop that can be grown under 

 such conditions, especially when the sowing is not too 

 long deferred. Where the normal rainfall is more than 

 15 inches, flax may frequently be made to follow a grain 

 crop, but where it is less, such sowing should be avoided. 

 On new land it is quite feasible to grow two crops in 

 succession with good, healthy seed, but such a rotation 

 is not to be commended. Under some conditions it may 

 be in order to follow flax with grain. The plan, how- 

 ever, is safer which follows flax with summer-fallow or 

 with a cultivated crop, as corn. The flax crop dries out 

 the soil and loosens it to such an extent that the hazard 

 to the next crop from drought is increased. The preva- 

 lent idea that flax should not be grown on land more 

 frequently, than every six or seven years is not well 

 founded, providing the conditions for growing it are 

 right and the seed is free from disease germs. 



