CHAPTER XI 



SOWING AND HARVESTING 



The careful application of the principles of soil 

 treatment discussed in the preceding chapters will 

 leave the soil in good condition for sowing, either in 

 the fall or spring. Nevertheless, though proper dry- 

 farming insures a first-class seed-bed, the problem of 

 sowing is one of the most difficult in the successful 

 production of crops without irrigation. This is 

 chiefly due to the difficulty of choosing, under some- 

 what rainless conditions, a time for sowing that will 

 insure rapid and complete germination and the es- 

 tablishment of a root system capable of producing 

 good plants. In some respects fewer definite, reliable 

 principles can be laid down concerning sowing than 

 any other principle of important application in the 

 practice of dry-farming. The experience of the last 

 fifteen years has taught that the occasional failures 

 to which even good dry-farmers have been subjected 

 have been caused almost wholly by uncontrollable 

 unfavorable conditions prevailing at the time of 

 sowing. 



Conditions of germination 



Three conditions determine germination: (1) heat, 

 (2) oxygen, and (3) water. Unless these three con- 



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