i 
Cultivusing to Save Moisture. 151 
The mellower the soil, the lighter should be the 
work done by the harrow. On most heavy orchard 
soils, it will be found necessary to use the heavy 
tools, like the spring-tooth and dise harrows, in the 
spring, but if the land is properly handled it should 
be in such condition as to allow the use of a 
spike-tooth or smoothing harrow during summer. 
This light summer harrowing should be sufficient to 
keep down the weeds, and it preserves the soil- 
muleh in most excellent condition. With such a 
tool and on land in good tilth, a man can harrow 
ten or more acres a day. 
Cultivators and conservation of moisture.—The ac- 
tion of cultivators is not materially different from 
that of the spring-tooth harrow. The size of the 
teeth should be regulated by the work to be per- 
formed, an implement with many small teeth being 
preferable to one with a few large teeth, when the ob- 
ject is to conserve moisture. It must be borne in 
mind that in a dry time the less surface exposed the 
less will be the evaporation. If a large-toothed im- 
plement is used to destroy grass and weeds, then it 
should be followed by a smoother to reduce the ridges 
and prevent loss of moisture. Ridge eulture is only 
allowable when the object is to relieve the soil of 
moisture on bottom lands where the water comes 
very near the surface, or for some special crops, 
where a high degree of warmth is required early in 
the season. In these cases, it may be necessary to 
throw up ridges to produce the proper degree of 
warmth for germination, but even then the ridges 
