Campbell's 1902 Soil Culture Manual. 



89 



under these conditions the evaporation is not as great, yet it is important 

 to stir the soil and dry it out. In this work, the weeder being Hght and 

 easy of draught, does very efficient work. It is not an expensive tool, and 

 to those who have not used it, it is worth their while for investigation. 



Cut No. 20 shows one of the more recent construction of weeders, 

 and like the later and newer inventions of any line, has its advantages over 

 those of an older pattern. This is really a combination of a harrow with a 

 weeder. These teeth, it will be noticed, may be slipped into a hook at the 

 rear of the head. When in this position, as is shown on the four front 

 bars in the cut, the teeth are 1}4. inches long, and in this position is used 

 as a common harrow, and as such does equally as good work as the old 

 style steel harrow, both in pulverizing the surface and in smoothing. 



When these teeth are released, as they are shown to be on the rear 

 bar in cut, they are 24 inches long. In that position it is a weeder, with 

 all the advantages of the common weeder, and in addition can be built 

 much wider, even up to 32 feet wide, so that one man with six horses may 

 go over 80 to 100 acres of wheat in one day. The position of the teeth may 

 be regulated by the lever. 



(See advertisement on another page.) 



A WORD ON DRILLS. 



We hear a good deal of discussion among the farmers with ref- 

 erence to the proper drills for sowing small grain. We think many farmers 

 are very inuch misled in putting too much stress on the kind of a drill to 

 be used. While in the semi-arid belt, if not in the entire great plains coun- 

 try, we believe the drill has many advantages over the broad cast seeder 

 plan, yet the preparation of the ground, its physical condition, and 

 amount of available moisture below at the time of seeding might almost 

 be called the controlling condition as to the yield of the crop. If we are to 

 admit that it will do to sow ground to wheat or other grain over and over 

 again, two, three, and four years without plowing, then we might produce 

 some argument possibly in favor of the disc drill or some other special drill. 

 But the claim that a tool which will enable us to put seed into the ground 

 without first properly preparing the ground is a question that should not 

 receive consideration in this belt of country, and will not a few years later. 

 Our preference at the present time, presuming that our ground is thor- 

 oughly plowed to a good depth, pulverized, and worked down firm with a 

 loose mulch on top, is for the shoe drill with a chain cover, the object being 

 to deposit the wheat about one inch into the fine, firm, moist soil, in a 



