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Show VALUE OF MOISTURE Rain and Snow That Fall Should Be Carefully Conserved. Almost Impossible to Impress Upon Minds of Farmers Importance of Giving Most Careful Attention Atten-tion to This Question. In the dry areas moisture Is always precious. The amount of moisture that falls In the form of rain is always or nearly always low. By no means that man can adopt can it be increased. in-creased. The only thing that can be done is to adopt measures that will make falls go further than it would If it were not carefully considered in order to grow crops. Notwithstanding this fact, it Is almost impossible to impress upon the minds of many farmers the importance of giving the most careful attention to this question. ques-tion. In Montana the present season large quantities of prairie are being broken. In many instances the land thus broken is left as the plow left it. It has been turned over and It may be In a way that leaves It lying loosely, says Dakota Farmer. If left thus through the summer season it will dry out so completely that no moisture mois-ture will be left. Should winter wheat be sowed on that land, the moisture Is not there to germinate it or to sustain germination if it should start. Grain starting thus weakly is sure to succumb In the winter that follows. Should no grain be sown until spring, the ground has just that much less moisture that it would have had by the amount that was lost. And yet this is what very many are doing. It may be that some are constrained to do this by force of circumstances, as when they hire the breaking done by steam power and leave the land lying thus. It may be that they do not find it possible to get the land compressed com-pressed at once, and a dust mulch made upon it. The question of harrowing grain is also one of the greatest Importance to the farmer in the dry country. This Is a great question. We have only touched upon its outer rim. In some instances one harrowing may make more of a difference than can well be imagined. In other Instances It may do harm. In the dry country from one to two harrowings are nearly always helpful to a grain crop. In some instances in-stances from three to four may do good. In the case of winter wheat Dne to two harrowings may be beneficial benefi-cial in the autumn, and from one to three in the spring. If but two harrowings har-rowings are done in the spring, let it be understood that, as a rule, one can best be given when the crop can first be discerned coming through the ground, and the other after the plants are several Inches high. But no cast Iron rules can be given. A heavy rain falling may call for harrowing at some Jifferent time. The conditions also may call for the use of a different kind Df harrow. The dry farmer is not equipped for his work with only one harrow. The harrow that Is suitable for one kind of soil and condition is not suitable, It may be, for another kind of soil or a different condition. Nor Is the farmer in the dry country coun-try properly equipped for his work without a roller. In some instances he may want a subsurface packer. In Dther Instances he will want a corrugated corru-gated roller, and yet again a plain roller. These three may not always be wanted on the same farm, but In the dry country they all have a place according to the conditions. Each farmer should have some kind of a clod crusher. It may be of various va-rious forms, but usually it may be home-made and, therefore, cheaply made. The idea Is to have something that will crush clods. In lands that are more or less adobe in character, such an implement if it can be called an implement, is of immense value. Both the roller and clod crusher are generally but not always to be use before the crop is planted. The clou crusher on uneven land or on cloddy adobe land may do a world of good by way of mashing, clods at the right time. Of course the beginner may not be able to do all these things at the first, but he should make the nearest approach ap-proach possible to them. On fifteen inches of rainfall a year, good crops can be grown if much of the moisture falls In the growing season, but the success will be proportionate to the extent to which the moisture is held. Deep plowing enlarges the room for it in the soil, and prevents it from running run-ning away over the surface into the streams. |