Show awu s n CRUST UNDER MULCH Nothing Can Prevent Formation if Drouth Lasts Long Cannot De Broken Up Without Destroying De-stroying Crop but Can Be Rendered Ren-dered Harmless by Right Kind of Plowing Every dry year some one asks What can we do when a crust forms under mulch Nothing can prevent this crust forming If the drouth lasts long enough writes E It Parsons In Dry Farming Bulletin The top Inch of the mulch dries first then the second then the third and then the Inevitable crust begins to form underneath and becomes thicker and thicker with every day of drouth We cannot break up this crust without with-out destroying the crop but we can render this crust perfectly harmless by the right kind of plowing and that Is all that is necessary The formation of this crust depends on two different factors the drouth about and the moisture conditions below be-low Peoplo sometimes talk and write In magazines about the dry farmer making mak-ing a cistern for moisture and putting tho lid on and so forth as If he had all the water he could handle but the fact of the matter Is wo can wot up our land by conserving moisture to a certain percentage to a certain limit only which Is determined by the capillarity cap-illarity of the Boll in question and above that limit which Is more or loss constant it Is Impossible to raise It as long as there Is a dry subsoil below which Is the true condition of the dry farm soil What I mean Is this When a storm comes the water goes down by capillarity or gravity or both combined until It Is too diffused to go any further capillarity ceases for the time being until another storm comes and starts It again then It goes down again until It stops for lack of water Now If we make a test of this soil for moisture a day or so after a storm when capillarity has ceased working we find wo have no more moisture In the soil than we had before be-fore the percentage Is tho same but It has gono down further We are obtaining ob-taining a greater depth of moist ground Some farmers plow shallow owing to a misconception of this action of moisture They expect the moisture to rise by capillarity to moisten their crust and hold tho drouth at bay when capillarity Is already exhausted by the downward pull of gravity I After making several hundred tests in all varieties of soil during tho last 30 years I have been unwillingly forced to the Inevitable conclusion that capillarity as a help to tho dry farmer Is bringing up moisture from the subsoil to the roots of his crops Is a negligible quantity on true dry farm land that Is not subIrrigated We all allow however that capillarity capillar-ity works very strongly sometimes for a few days on the top throe or four Inches after wet weather before the moisture has diffused downward and we can make use of this knowledge for seed germination by using the press drill which will draw the moisture mois-ture to the packed seed rows without with-out packing and baking the whole Held Since the moisture does not rise to moisten our crust except very slightly slight-ly by distillation It Is clear that the best thing we can do Is to go down after the moisture The only way to do this Is to plow deeply not any six or seven Inches but eight nine tenor ten-or twelve |