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Show SOIL IS A 813 FACTOR Two Essentials That Are Essence Es-sence of Dry Farming. Land Must Be Plowed So as to Get Water to Sink Into Ground, and Cultivate to Prevent Any Evaporation. These two practices are the essence of dry farming: We must plow so as to get the water to tlnk into the ground, and cultivate so as to prevent evaporation of any kind until we are ready for the crop. The soil is a very big (actor. We want a deep, friable soil into which the water will sink readily. A heavy soil does not take up waier readily, and does not give back water readily, writes Frederick Lin field, In the Agricultural Agri-cultural Epitomist. A very light soil is too readily aerated; the water flows through too easily. It does not contain con-tain enough. At one place in the state where the rainfall is less than 13 inches we have been carryiflg on work five years In one season of the five the rain exceeded exceed-ed 15 inches and in one season it was less than 11 inchts. Not one season during the five years have we found the water to penetrate prairie sod more than two feet, where the grass was eaten close by the cattle. That, bare, hard ground, clean of vegetation, had not taken up enough water to wet it more than two feet down. Where the grass was growing and the pasture taken care of, we found that the water had gone down deeper. The evaporation from the grass-covered soil in the early spring is net as great as from the bare soil. In the c:.so of cultivated ground, plowed in the fall or early in the spring, we have found the soil to be wet down about six feet, and the sixth foot of soil was wet enough to make mud balls. The next season the land was summer sum-mer fallowed (a crop on it the first year and summer fallowed the next year) and we found the soil wet down seven feet, with the seventh foot wet enough to make mud balls. The next year it was wet dowp still further. Cropping every alternate year and summer fallowing between, we found that it was wet down nine, ten and eleven feet, and this on soil that had never been wet down two feet five years before. The point I wish to make is this: that we can control the moisture. We can get the wat,er that falls to soak into the ground and can keep it there until the next spring comes and the crop Is ready to use it. We have stored full half if not more of the rainfall of one season and tided It over to use it the next season for the growing crop. We plow six or seven inches. It is best to go down deep. If there comes a heavy shower we want it to sink down into the ground and stay there. We haven't found l necessary to subsoil. sub-soil. The usual practice in cultivation is to follow the disk after turning over with the plow, the double disk, and then we drag-harrow with a spike-tooth spike-tooth harrow. If we are able In the spring, we use a packer to pack the Boil down, then disk and drag-harrow. We don't want to disk too much because be-cause it digs too deep and stirs the ground and lets out the moisture. A drag harrow used often enough keeps the weeds down. On the college col-lege farm we have used another tool which is a little heavier than the harrow. In the spring we sometimes use the drag-harrow on the wheat. There Is little difference of opinion on that point. If we have a soil which Is light and Is not clay we use the harrow. We disk on stubble land to keep the moisture In the ground. Fall rye Is quite a successful crop; so are macaroni wheat and fall wheat especially the turkey red variety; hull-less barley, which does very well with ns and Is a very rapid grower, with a good yield in dry farming; also an early variety of oats. Then, again, because we have that type of soil and store the water away down in the ground six. seven, eight, nine or ten feet, and not very much comes to the surface, we want deep rooted plants. Such crops as fall wheat and corn are an advantage to us. If we have to grow a late season crop we want a crop that will save the moisture. In our lower valleys we can grow corn and sugar beets fairly well, and also potatoes. Now, what results has this kind of farming given in a country where the rainfall averages twelve inche3? 1 want to take up first what we have done experimentally, where we have tried to do this in the best way possible pos-sible on a small farm. On fall wheat our average for about four years, where the average rainfall was less than 13 inches for the last five years, cropping every alternate year and summer fallowing, has been 35 bushels per acre on a field of about six and a half acres. Our average until 1910 was over forty. That year was one of the driest we have had since I have been here, with hot winds, and our average was 26 bushels of wheat to the acre. Our macaroni wheat, a spring crop, shows 19 or 20 bushels; to the acre. Oats will run about 40 to 50 bushels to the acre. I have seen I as high as 80 in a good season. Hull-less barley will run at 25 to 30 bushels to the acre at 60 pounds to the bushel, cropping every alternate year. |
