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Show WORK ON DRY FARM Success of Any Business Depends De-pends Greatly on Margin of Profits. Careful Study of Situation Amon Farmers in Eeml-Arid Sections Shows That Those Who Plow Deeply Reap Abundantly. (By E. R. PARSONS, Practical Farmer, Parker, Colo.) The success of any business depends on the margin of profit, the difference between expenditure and returns. The same principle obtains in dry farming farm-ing a? in everything else. Many are losing regularly every year from six to ten dollars an acre on their plowing alone. A careful study of the situation, taking facts and figures from a hundred or more different farmers in every dry state in the Union, shows that those who plow ten or twelve inches reap, as a rule, almost double the crop that is reaped by those who plow only six or seven inches. The extra cost is one more horse, or about one dollar dol-lar per acre, the extra returns are sometimes as much as ten or more dollars per acre. Good plowing is economical in every sense of the word, and no amount of supplementary work will take its -place. A crop planted in deep ground will stand more drought, and mature with half the cultivation required re-quired by a crop on shallow ground. Rolling or packing the ground is an operation that can often be profit ably avoided. The rule to follow is to plow in the fall for spring grain crops and in the spring for fall crops. This obviates packing, for the ground has ample time to become settled. For corn and cane the soil should not be packed, except in the seed row. Even for that purpose the split wheel is much better than the solid wheel, as it leaves a loose space in the center cen-ter of the seed row for the shoots to some through. In cultivating these crops deep cultivation is the more economical since the soil stays loose for a longer period and does not bake as easily as when the mulch is shallow; cutting the surface roots at the beginning of the season does not hurt the corn but favors deep rooting. root-ing. Packing the surface stimu-lotes stimu-lotes the growth of a crop at the start, encourages top growth, at the expense of the root, and on the dry farm overgrowth at the start is very poor preparation for a drought at the finish. For these reasons rolling and packing have been almost entirely abandoned in the agricultural communities com-munities of the old world and Mr. Safray tells us the same thing of the dry regions of Hungary. There are, however, some loose sandy soils which are the better for packing, when planted immediately after plowing. I agree with Professor Jardine that it is dangerous to pack clay loams, for fear of crusting and the experience experi-ence of our friends in Colorado, New-Mexico New-Mexico and Texas amply confirm this belief The most vital point in the dry farm operations is the economy of moisture. moist-ure. Moisture means crops and good crops mean profit. Little attention is paid to this by some formers. They will plow a whole field before harrowing. harrow-ing. This allows thousands of tons of moisture to escape into the atmosphere atmo-sphere and leaves the land dry and full of clods for the raising of an indifferent in-different crop. In planting corn on the level it makes no difference whatever, what-ever, whether the rows run east and west or north and south,. The sun strikes the corn from above on level land, not from the sides, but on a side-hill it makes all the difference in the world, as far as moisture is concerned. If the rows, run up and down the hill, the cultivator leaves furrows for the water to run off, on the other hand, where tuo rows run across the slope, rough cultivation cul-tivation will often hold an inch of rain if it comes in 20 minutes. A northern slope holds moisture slightly longer than a southern exposure, ex-posure, but this is somewhat compensated compen-sated for by the fact that the southern south-ern slopes usually catch more snow in winter. Much moisture is lost by not breaking break-ing up the surface of a field as soon as a crop is off, a patch of 40 acres may evaporate as much as 200 tons of water into thin air in one single warm day. This is like throwing away gold. On the question of fallowing, no hard and fast rule should be followed, follow-ed, the farmer should decide as to whether to plant a crop or not according ac-cording to the actual amount of moisture moist-ure in the ground. To discover how much moisture the soil contains is a very simple matter of weighing, drying dry-ing and weighing again. Except in orchard work it Is poor economy to save more than three feet of moist soil, containing as much a8 it will ordinarily carry with a dry subsoil underneath. This amount of moisture with careful handling will raise a crop in a fairly dry year. In order to thoroughly understand the moisture question the farmer should investigate it with a ground auger, at least with a pick and shovel. He will learn more in a few months by so doing than he would in years by following theories evolved under different conditions on other dry or humid farms, especially such experiments conducted in a state like California, where for six or more months it never rains at all and yet during the wet season I have seen It pour for three weeks at a stretch. |