GROWING CULTIVATED CROPS IN DRY AREAS 299 



Care of the crop. The crop will usually profit much 

 from the careful stirring of the surface soil with the har- 

 row or the weeder, before it reaches the surface. Subse- 

 quently, if harrowing is given, it should be done with 

 great care, and usually only when the plants are too 

 thick, so that if they are thinned somewhat by the process 

 the crop will not suffer. After the plants appear, the 

 cultivator is, all in all, the best implement to use. It 

 should be run at first quite near to the line of the row. 

 As with corn, the cultivations should be frequent and con- 

 tinued until the beans have reached the flowering stage. 

 This work should never be done when the plants are 

 wet with dew or rain. Some hand hoeing may be neces- 

 sary to remove weeds that may start in the line of the 

 row. 



Harvesting. The crop may be harvested by hand 

 pulling, should the area grown be small. For large areas 

 a bean puller, or, as it is sometimes called, a bean lifter, 

 should be used. This implement cuts off the beans a 

 short distance below the surface of the ground. They 

 are then lifted by the aid of a fork and placed in rows 

 or piles to dry. From these they may be stacked, if quite 

 dry, and threshed later with a machine specially de- 

 signed for such work. Soy beans are in some instances 

 harvested by swine. For such a use they have high 

 adaptation. In dry areas this may be done with little or 

 no loss of grain, but, of course, the straw is spoiled for 

 feeding. 



The yields of the common bean average not less than 

 20 bushels per acre. The average yields from soy beans 

 are probably not any more, but in some instances the 

 large and late varieties give yields that are much larger. 



GROWING FIELD ROOTS 



The field roots that may be grown in the semi-arid 

 areas include carrots, mangels, sugar beets, turnips, ruta- 



