Show DRY FARM TILLAGE SYSTEM principle upon which it I 1 baand baaed are of primo in any region of drought by 0 M minnesota station in regions where the amount ol 01 rainfall is quite limited though the boll la of a desirable character tor agricultural purposes a system ol 01 tillage known as dry farming haa been put in practice such a system Is not entirely applicable to regions of heavier rainfall but the principles upon which it is based are of prime consideration in any region where occasional cas ional periods of drought are known the practice of disking immediately following harvest to fit the soil to ab corb possible rainfall and to check evaporation is a desirable one in any locality and the principles that un berlle subsurface packing and surface culah aaion are applicable in a meas ure to every locality the dry land farmer must keep in mind that his gravest danger lies in an insufficient amount of moisture to mature his crops he must and store in the soil as much as possible of the moisture that falls and carefully conserve it until it Is needed by the growing crop wherever a sea bons eons rainfall is not sufficient to ma ture a crop or the amount Is very un certain it is possible w ath proper tillage to carry over a greater portion of one seasons rainfall to the following season and thus strengthen the assurance of a profitable crop under such a system of tillage crops are not grown every year and in extreme cases the plan bontem plates a crop only every alternate year the important consideration in all dry farming DO matter how frequently the land Is cropped is a careful conservation of all moisture and the system of alternate cropping will serve to illustrate the general principle after a crop has been harvested the land is either plowed or disked this puts the surface in a loosened condition which readily absorbs any rainfall that may come in stead of allowing it to waste by run nang oft with the disking method a portion of the grain stubble Is chopped up and mixed with the surface soil 1 which establishes a better connection between the furrow slice and the sub soil below whenever the land Is plowed here the land Is disked in the fall it is usually disked again in the spring and then plowed in the early summer subsurface packing usually follows spring plowing and la used tor the purpose of firming the lower part of the furrow slice and to unite it with the subsoil below the land Is given frequent surface cultivation during the summer hav i ing in mind two effective modes of conserving soil moisture namely the keeping down of all weed growth and the preservation of an earth mulch to check loss by evaporation |