Campbell's 1902 Soil Culture Manual. 



27 



over to cultivation you should first provide yourself with some fine- 

 toothed cultivator, so that the soil may be all thoroughly fined, leaving 

 the surface of the firm soil beneath as near level as possible. Then, great 

 care should be taken to catch your ground in proper condition. It is true 

 there is but little time after a rain that the ground is in the best pos- 

 possible condition. This is the time when the free water is all percolated 

 below, and the soil to the depth which you wish to run your cultivator, is 

 simply moist — not very wet nor very dry. In this condition the little par- 

 ticles seem to readily separate, one from the other, then your stirred soil 

 is composed of an innumerable number of little, minute lumps, forming a 

 mulch that gives you the highest degree of protection. A mulch made 

 when soil is in this condition will never blow. 



If the soil be too dry it breaks into large lumps which not unfre- 

 quently lay in such manner as to direct volumes of air through the large 

 spaces between them down to the solid and firm soil beneath, causing 

 much loss by evaporation. It is needless to mention the difficulty arising 

 from cultivating soil that is too wet. When worked it becomes what is 

 known as "puddled," and then when dried it becomes hard as brick and a 

 heavy rain is required to even dissolve the lumps so that they may after- 

 wards be pulverized. 



SAVING WATER BY CULTIVATION. 



There are two vital points in regard to the successful growing of 

 crops in the western country, and the average farmer appears to find^ it 

 difficult to comprehend either. This is largely because of his past experi- 

 ence in the more humid sections of the country where it was not neces- 

 sary to consider or study these questions. The first is the importance of 

 getting all the water possible into the gronnd, and second, using every 

 possible means to conserve or retain it there. 



The importance, or value, of a little additional water is shown by 

 the effect of snow drifts that may form on the field from any cause. The 

 increased amount of moisture that seems to find its way into the soil 

 when the snow melts invariably makes itself apparent in the growing crop 

 as soon as a dry period begins to affect the crop in the least. At these 

 points the crop always holds out longer, sometimes carrying the crop over 

 to another good rain, which results in maturing an unusually large yield 

 on these places, while the balance of the field will not yield to exceed one- 

 half or one-fourth the amount. Thus a gain in yield of wheat of probably 

 ten bushels to the acre is the result of perhaps not over one-half inch of 

 additional water that had percolated into the ground. The enormous 

 evaporation from our fields under favorable conditions is not in the least 

 comprehended by the average farmer because he has no means of readily 

 testing and proving. 



