CEOP ROTATION AND CULTURAL METHODS AT AKRON, COLO. 25 
erable growth, and if the winter and early spring are dry, there is 
considerable danger from soil blowing, even on the hard land. 
The greatest danger of soil blowing is during February, March, 
and April. Hard winds after the 1st of May usually cause only 
very local movements of soil, because the spring vegetation is then 
large enough to prevent movement over any considerable area. It 
is during these months that the heaviest winds of the year are likely 
to occur. It is also during these months that the soil, fined and 
leveled through alternate freezings and thawings of the winter, is 
most subject to blowing. Normally, soil blowing is not a serious 
factor on the hard land, but it may become very serious in some 
years when the early spring precipitation is light and the winds are 
especially hard and shifting. Blowing is always a hazard on the 
soft or sandy lands, and cropping practices must be designed with it in 
mind. 
The best protection against soil blowing is a vegetable covering. 
Where the blowing hazard is great a certain percentage of the land 
is best left in permanent pasture. 
As winter wheat is the crop most subject to damage from soil 
blowing, on soft or sandy lands it should be seeded on wheat or corn 
stubble. The corn stubble offers the more favorable chance of pro- 
ducing a wheat crop, but it affords less protection from soil blowing 
than wheat stubble. The corn-stubble protection is better when 
the stover is left standing. The forage can be pastured by cattle or 
horses during the winter months without damage to the wheat. 
The standing cornstalks may be flattened with a stalk cutter or by 
dragging a log or pole over the field, a horse hitched to each end., 
the best time being when the ground is frozen. If the ground is 
frozen, the stalks will be snapped off even with the ground and will 
not later interfere with harvesting. The standing cornstalks will 
rather effectively catch a maximum of the drifting snow through the 
winter. Where winter wheat is sown in small-grain stubble, the 
aim should be to leave as much of the stubble intact as possible. 
On open fields where the wheat crop has not become firmly estab- 
lished much can be done to prevent blowing by cultivating and rough- 
ening the surface soil. Soil blowing starts from a single spot or a 
number of such spots. The spread from the starting point is fan 
shaped in the direction of the wind. The movement from this 
single small area, unless stopped by cultivation, spreads as long as 
the heavy wind blows and may cross into adjoining fields. One 
field blowing badly may be the means of setting into motion the soil 
of adjacent fields in the path of the wind. The soil which has blown 
during one windstorm remains in ideal condition to blow when the 
next heavy wind occurs unless cultivated meantime. Obviously, 
the thing to do is to break up the tendency to blow before any con- 
siderable movement has taken place. A corn cultivator with all 
shovels but one on each beam removed is very effective for culti- 
vating blowing areas, and it causes a minimum damage to the wheat 
crop. By promptly cultivating the point or points at which the 
blowing starts the blowing may be kept effectively under control. 
If the movement has attained considerable headway, always begin 
at the source on the side with the wind and cultivate back and 
forth at right angles to the direction of the wind, cultivating until 
the entire blowing area has been covered. The most important 
