HINTS ON SOILS AND FERTILIZERS 1 T 
mellow and firm seed bed. This can be done 
by means of the disc harrow, the smoothing 
harrow, or “drag,” and the roller or planker. 
The disc harrow breaks lip the hard lumps into 
fine particles, the “drag” further pulverizes 
these lumps into a smooth seed bed, and the 
roller compacts the top soil, so that there is 
not too much space between the soil particles 
in the plowed surface. While the last named 
implement is not as commonly used as the other 
implements mentioned above, it has its merits, 
and will be found to be a paying proposition on 
most farm land, when preparing the seed bed 
for the various crops. 
Besides requiring the seed bed to be mellow 
and firm, we also want our farm soils tilled to 
aid in destroying weeds, conserving moisture, 
preserving the texture of the soil, and the 
liberation of the plant food elements. Weeds 
are a great source of trouble on a great majority 
of our American farms, and if the crops are not 
cultivated, in many cases, the weeds will 
smother out the original crops, with the result 
that we would get a very meager crop. By 
cultivating, or shallow plowing, between the 
rows of the crops that are capable of being cul¬ 
tivated, the weeds can be held in check, and 
this gives the crop the benefit of the plant food. 
There are a few weeds that are especially 
difficult to kill out, such as quack grass and 
Canada thistle. However, these weeds can be 
eradicated, if the piece of land so infested with 
these weeds is put into some cultivated crop 
for a few years, and a determined effort is put 
forth to kill them out. By constant cultiva- 
