24 PRACTICAL CORN CULTURE 
or as deep as the team can pull the plow. When we are 
turning under soy beans, however, the plowing is shallow 
in order to allow the plants to rot more quickly. This ground 
is plowed deep in the spring when the beans are put in. 
In plowing stalks under we try to plow six inches deep, 
if the ground is dry, since the stalks are covered better than 
in plowing four or five inches deep. Never try to cover stalks 
with only four inches of soil when the field is to go in 
corn. Subsequent cultivations will drag them out and they 
will be a continual source of annoyance throughout the crop 
tending season. 
PLowine Sop 
Blue-grass sod, or ground that has been in pasture for a 
number of years, should be plowed in the fall. In plowing 
blue-grass it is a good plan to plow very shallow in the fall 
and follow with a plowing at least two inches deeper in the 
spring. This is more work than is necessary to break any 
other sod with which we are familiar. If the sod is very 
tough, a wide angle moldboard should be used. This will 
pull more easily and will turn the sod under much better 
than the general purpose plows found on most farms. Clover 
and timothy meadows that constitute a part of the short crop 
rotations of the corn belt seldom become sodded enough to 
necessitate the use of the sod plow. 
If sod is plowed in the spring it should be done early. 
Wet sod, although it turns up slick on the bottom of the 
furrow slice, will not bake and become cloddy because of the 
presence of such an abundance of humus. Owing to the rush 
of farm work in the spring every effort should be made to get 
the sod plowed by the time the corn stalk land is in condition 
to work. 
In some cases it might be well to break clover sod late in 
order to enrich the land with the greater amount of nitrogen 
