246 DRY LAND FARMING 



Although flax is more frequently grown as the first 

 crop on breaking than any other crop, unless it be wheat, 

 the wisdom of making it the first crop in preference to 

 wheat is to be questioned. Experience has shown that 

 when wheat is the first crop and flax the second, the re- 

 turns from the crops that follow, covering a period of, 

 say, four to five years, will be greater. 



Preparing the land. Flax calls for a seed bed fine 

 on the top and firm below, though good crops have been 

 grown on a seed bed rough and soddy. One that has a 

 smooth as well as a fine surface is much to be preferred, 

 as the crop grown on it may be harvested with much 

 less loss by waste. A properly prepared summer-fallow 

 or a cultivated crop well cared for furnishes an ideal 

 seed bed for flax. As the crop is not sown very early, 

 careful attention should be given to the conservation of 

 moisture, subsequent to the advent of spring, by the 

 judicious use of the disc or harrow or both. 



When sod is broken for flax in the early summer, it 

 is managed on the summer-fallow plan (see p. 170). "When 

 sown on spring breaking, the land should be plowed, if 

 practicable, in the early spring and as deeply as 6 inches. 

 It should then be pressed down at once with a roller 

 and disced and harrowed until a fine seed bed is made, 

 and as free as possible from sods. The seed should be 

 sown, as a rule, not later than May 15th, to avoid undue 

 hazard should the season turn dry. This does not con- 

 tradict the fact that good crops of flax may be grown 

 on sod land plowed quite shallow and in many instances 

 left unsown as late as June 15th, in northern areas, but 

 in all such sowing there is the hazard that failure may 

 follow. 



When wheat or other grain is the first crop, and 

 when the breaking has been done fairly deep and flax 

 is sown as the second crop, it would seem to be the bet- 

 ter plan to prepare the ground for flax by discing it 



