THE AGRICULTURAL FUTURE OF THE REGION. 



29 



seasons and on late plowing. It may be of no benefit in a wet season 

 and may be harmful on heavy soil. 



There are various types of corrugated rollers and special subsurface 

 packers made for this purpose, and the w^ork may be done with the 

 common disk by setting it straight and weighting it to make it run 

 deep. Subsurface packing is important not only on summer-tilled 

 but also on spring-plowed land that is to raise a crop the same season. 



In western Kansas and eastern Colorado the lister is very much in 

 favor and the farmers use it for every possible purpose. Most of the 

 few who have done any summer-tilling do not plow the ground but 

 list the land that is to be summer-tilled just after they get through 



Fig. 3.— a summer-tilled field where winter w^heat will be grown, adjacent to the field shown in figure 2. 



planting corn (fig. 4), then throw down the ridges. About the last 

 of June or the first of July they list again, splitting the middles left 

 by the first listing. They then throw down the ridges and do what- 

 ever additional cultivation is necessary to keep down the weeds and 

 maintain the surface mulch. This is a cheaper way of doing the 

 work than plowing, because less cultivation is required. It has an 

 advantage also in the fact that if the weeds attain any considerable 

 size (which should never be allowed), the ridges enable the farmer to 

 kill the weeds without plowing the ground. It does not seem to the 

 writer, however, that this method can, on the average, produce as 

 favorable results as that previously described, although there are no 

 data at hand to show the comparative values of the two methods. 



215 



