WHEAT RAISING ON THE PLAINS. 27 
ed to plow their ground for wheat. As a rule the ground 
which is plowed for wheat is not worked enough to make a good 
seed bed for the plants. So the soil dries out and injures the crop 
when droughty periods come. With ordinary tools it is next to 
impossible to make a seed-bed sufficiently compact for the wheat 
plant after the soil has been plowed shortly before sowing. Too 
much air space is left in the soil and this is fatal to the feeding 
roots of the wheat plant. With special tools for packing the soil 
after plowing an ideal seed-bed may be made. But this requires 
so much work that one man could not seed a large area to wheat 
as is the custom now. It is possible for one man to plant 300 or 
400 acres to wheat, but if he plowed the land and then prepared 
it properly after plowing, he would be able to plant only 80 or 
100 acres. In seeding on plowed land, the hoedrill has been used. 
The press drill is superior to the hoe drill as a machine for plant¬ 
ing where drought is so often a prominent factor in determining 
the results. The disc press drill is also considered an especially 
good tool for use in the dry farming country. 
For a long time some farmers claimed that broadcasting the 
seed and then covering with a disc harrow or a cultivator so as to 
thoroughly stir all the top soil and put the grain into the ground 
in contact with firm soil was the proper method to sow wheat. 
Then the disc seeder was invented. It did, at once going over 
the land, exactly what they held was best. With plenty of 
teams, a man could put in a large acreage single-handed, then if 
the crop was a failure, he would lose nothing except the seed and 
his own labor, while if the crop was good, he could well afford to 
hire plenty of help to harvest and thresh the crop. But as land 
becomes more valuable, I notice that more work is put on the 
preparation of the soil, and seed drills grow in favor. 
When I first visited the wheat growing district of eastern 
Colorado, many of the best farmers told me that they had grown 
wheat on the same ground year after year, sometimes as much as 
ten crops in succession, and the soil did not show any signs of be¬ 
ing worth any less for wheat growing than it was the first year 
wheat was sown upon the land. Two years later all admitted 
that the land was surely failing when wheat followed wheat. In 
1902, I noted fields which demonstrated the difference between 
wheat after wheat and wheat after corn. In some cases wheat 
following wheat gave a yield only five bushels per acre, while 
wheat following corn in the same field, produced fifteen bushels 
per acre. It is now generally admitted that it does not pay to 
sow wheat after wheat. The rotation usually practiced is corn 
one year and wheat the next. 
Fall plowing for spring wheat has not been a success. The 
best explanation for this is that during the winter the soil dries 
