160 DRY FARMING 



hand, this method does not give opportunity for con- 

 trolling the spread of annual and biennial weeds. In- 

 regions where spring burning has been followed for- any 

 length of time these are very abundant. 



In some older districts where weeds are prevalent, and 

 where the soil blows so badly that the drift covers stubble 

 fields and renders spring burning impracticable, fall 

 burning and surface cultivation is sometimes practised. 

 A good burn cannot always be obtained in the fall, and 

 in addition this practice is generally more dangerous to 

 property. Fall burning offers better opportunity to kill 

 weeds, but less to hold snow and accumulate moisture. 

 The chief faults of stubble burning — and they are very 

 serious faults — are the great waste of organic matter 

 and nitrogen and the lack of opportunity spring burn- 

 ing offers for the control of weeds. The figures quoted 

 above and the apparently favorable increase in the re- 

 sults from burning stubble are to a considerabale degree 

 misleading. There are no long time records of the yield 

 on land burned off from year to year as compared with 

 similar land that has not been burned off. All avail- 

 able records of such tests in Western Canada have the 

 fundamental fault that they are not taken from con- 

 tinuously burned versus continually unburned fields, but 

 rather from plots that have been similarly treated until 

 the spring the crop is planted. This is obviously not a 

 fair comparison of the residual effects of stubble versus 

 the ash of stubble. 



The experience of the Northern States in burning 

 stubble and of the corn belt States in burning corn stalks 

 is to the effect that while there is apparently a slight 

 immediate advantage in burning, this is more apparent 

 than real, and the subsequent effects are such as to con- 



