300 DRY FARMING 



The cheapest and most efficient methods of weed de- 

 struction necessarily form a soil mulch. The results ac- 

 cruing from the prevention of weed growth have been 

 very generally attributed to the mulch itself when the 

 mulch is, in fact, only accidental. 



Tillage for the purpose of destroying weeds after har- 

 vest is warranted only in those exceptional cases when 

 sufficient water remains in the soil to start weed growth 

 after harvest or when heavy rains come soon after. In 

 such cases early fall plowing is the most effective method 

 of destroying the weeds and thus saving the moisture that 

 would be used by them if allowed to grow. The same 

 object may be accomplished by disking soon after the 

 weeds have started. This method has the advantage of 

 being more rapid than plowing, thus making it possible 

 to cover more ground with the same number of teams 

 and men. But as the land will have to be plowed before 

 another crop is sown, the labor of disking is mostly lost, 

 although the labor of plowing the disked land may be 

 somewhat less than if it were not disked and a better job 

 of plowing may sometimes be done on the disked land. 

 The cost of early fall plowing or disking, when the wea- 

 ther is hot and the men and teams are needed for stack- 

 ing, threshing, and hauling grain, is greater than later 

 in the fall, when the weather is cooler and there is less 

 other work for men and teams. All of these facts should 

 be taken into consideration before going to the extra 

 expense of tillage to kill weeds immediately after harvest. 



Spring plowing or disking, as soon as the weed seeds 

 have germinated, is usually a profitable practice. Where 

 small grain is to be sown, the sowing should be done soon 

 after plowing ,• but where corn, potatoes, or the sorghums 

 are to be grown there is often a period of several weeks 



