THE DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



99 



Sub-Surface Packer. 



"I think with knowledge of the sub-surface packer — and the way it is 

 being advertised without regard to its use, is certainly an enemy to dry 

 farming today. 



Summer Fallow. 



"I do not see its place in dry farming. Vv^here summer fallow is prac- 

 ticed on the soil that can be considered too heavy for the sub-surface 

 packer. With summer tillage the disc will compact that soil sufficiently. 

 We have not got the data yet that will warrant the statement that the 

 sub-surface packer can be recommended to farmers. 



Sub-Surface Packing. 



"I have seen fields practically ruined from using this at the time 

 when it never should have been placed on the land. We all admit that 

 loose soil can be benefited if plowed a little dry, by packing. Whether 

 or not it is absolutely necessary to use this sub-surface packer, except 

 in special cases, is a question to me. 



Expensive Machinery. 



"It is an expensive practice and that is one of the things the dry 

 farmer has to take into account, and we have got to reduce our expenses 

 to the minimum, so let's not use anything that will not give us full 

 results. It is a question every man has got to study out for his in- 

 dividual farm. It isn't something that anyone can recommend for all 

 sections. There are, as this gentleman said, heavy clay lands all over 

 this western region and I will say that probably the best farming that 

 is being done is in the mountains and they never use a packer. 



Summer Fallow. 



"They practice summer fallowing systems and the ground is thor- 

 oughly packed and it leaves the finest kind of a seed bed. I would cer- 

 tainly be opposed to making any statement regarding the use of the sub- 

 surface packer and would only use it where it had been demonstrated 

 that it will accomplish results, and I believe we have yet to find those 

 results before we can recommend it uniyersally." 



Sub-Surface Packer. 



A DELEGATE: "T am not in any sense interested in any tool, and 

 I thought it would go without saying that we need not recommend a tool 

 regardless of conditions; as they sometimes say when a manufacturer 

 makes a tool, he don't furnish the brains to run it, but with the condi- 

 tions under which we have used that tool, we have saved a great amount 

 of time. 



Gumbo Soils. 



"I have used other tools and I never could accomplish so much with 

 the soil we handle as with the sub-surface packer, but I certainly wouldn't 

 use it on clay and gumbo soil; you would pack it so tight you could use 

 it for bricks." 



