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Show DEPTH OF A SEED BED Prairie Soil Was Plowed to a Six-Inch Depth and Disked. 6mall Grain Harrowed Until Six Inches High and Corn Treated With Same Implement as Long as Possible Prevent Evaporation. Three years ago I took charge of a dry farm. The soil was a good loam containing a great many bowlders left by a glacial drift. At one time wheat in this section gave large yields but during the dry seasons the crop fell down to six to twelve bushels the acre which was scarcely worth fussing with at harvest time and stock was turned into many of the fields. I began be-gan the work of tackling virgin prairie. The neighbors thought I was crazy because I plowed the prairie soil six inches deep and followed the plow with a disk several times; because I harrowed the small grain until it was six inches high; because I harrowed har-rowed the corn every week so long as possible and then plowed it each week with a very small tooth cultivator. cultiva-tor. But they were surprised at harvest har-vest time because some of that land gave a return of ?32 the acre, writes Clifford Willis in Denver Field and Farm. Last year many of the fields in the vicinity were prepared and plowed better than they have been for some time because the farmers saw more bushels as the result and bushels meant dollars. I also had to work on some heavy soil. A part of this land was turned six inches deep while some was plowed only four inches. In each case the disk followed the plow and would have been still better if I had cross-disked before plowing as I am now doing. Everything possible w-as done to make a good firm seed bed and also to prevent evaporation. Many people in the vicinity thought !t strange that we would harrow our .small grain when it was six inches high. While working in the field stirring the soil, although dry, many of my brother farmers were not even in the field. We have harvested more and better grain than many of our neighbors neigh-bors simply because we kept at work. On the six-inch breaking of adobe the corn gave a yield of thirty-eight bushels bush-els the acre while four-inch breaking gave a yieid of less than thirteen bushels. In cultivating our crops in the dry area we followed these three factors a deep seed bed, a firm seed bed and surface cultivation. In every instance we disked our ground just as Boon as possible after harvest and on the corn ground we disked the stalks in order to cut them up and also to make a mulch. |