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Show SAVE SOIL MOISTURE Reservoir Must Be Prepared to Receive the Rain. Water Carried Into Subsoil Must Be Brought Back to Surface Where Seed Is Germinating and Young Roots Growing. So far as cultivation is concerned there are three principal steps In the conservation of soil moisture: 1. The soil must be loosened to a considerable depth In order to prepare a reservoir to receive the rain and carry the water downward into the soil. This may be accomplished by deep plowing, by listing, or by disking unplowed lands. 2. The water which is carried down into the subsoil must be brought back again into the surface soil where the seed is germinating and the young roots are growing, and to accomplish this a good connection must be made between the furrow-slice and the subsoil, sub-soil, and this is the purpose in the U6e of the subsurface packer immediately after plowing. 3. Finally, in order that the water which is drawn up again towards the surface may not reach the air and be wasted by evaporation, the upper two or three inches of the soil must be kept mellow in the form, of a soil mulch, and this is accomplished in the growing of crops, by frequent cultivation, culti-vation, which is not so practicable with wheat and other small grains as with corn and other intertilled crops. The most important step in soil moisture conservation is to get the water Into the soil. When this has been accomplished, the keeping it there and returning it gradually to the growing crop is a relatively simple matter. .Many farmers have yet failed to learn this most important fact of dry farming, that the storing of the moisture in the soil Is the first and great principle of soil moisture conservation. conser-vation. The firming and . pulverizing of the soil to prepare the seed bed, and the surface cultivation of the soil to maintain the mulch, are each without with-out avail unless there has been stored In the deeper soil a sufficient amount of moisture to support the growing crop in time of drought. Now the moisture should be stored at all times during the season, but especially during the Interval between harvest and planting. This requires early plowing so that the soil may be In condition to catch the rain and absorb ab-sorb it. 1 In order that there may be room to receive and store a heavy rain, deep plowing is desirable. If plowing cannot can-not be done early, the cultivation of the unplowed land with a disk harrow will keep the soil in good plowing condition con-dition longer and favors the absorption absorp-tion of rain. A good rule, but it cannot always be followed, is to plow when the soil is in such condition that it will drop from the moldboard in a mellow, friable condition. Deep plowing should be done with purpose and intelligence. Loosening the boII by deep plowing favors the absorption of moisture, bui if rains do not come in time such land will suffer from drought more quickly than though It had been plowed shallow. shal-low. The loose soil dries out and capll larity is broken, preventing the furrow-slice from receiving moisture from the subsoil rapidly enough to sustain the growing crop. The depth and frequency fre-quency of plowing should vary according accord-ing to the nature of the soil. A light or sandy soil requires less depth of plowing and less frequent plowing than a heavy, or compact, clayey or "gumbo" soil. As a general proposition, plowing should be shallow 7'hen It precedes planting only a short time. Plow deep In the fall, and plow deep for summer fallow. A long interval between plowing and seeding allows the soil to settle sufficiently, suffi-ciently, while freezing and thawing mellows the raw, hard subsoil which has been brought to the surface. The relative depths of plowing may be stated as follows: Shallow plowing 8 to 4 Inches Medium plowing 6 to 6 Inches Deep plowing 7 to 8 Inches Plowing deeper than eight inches with the common plow is not usually practicable, but the soil may be stirred twelve to eighteen Inches deep with a deep tillage plow or subsoil plow, and in heavy soil with hard compact subsoil sub-soil such deep stirring may occasionally occasional-ly be desirable. When land is allowed to lie for a considerable period after plowing before be-fore the crop is planted, the settling of the soil, together with the surface cultivation cul-tivation to preserve the mulch and the cementing due to rain, usually causes the soil to repack and firm up to a sufficient extent to make a good seed bed. |