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Show A REVOLUTION IN FARMING. In a Year of Drouth Harvested 142 Bushels of Potatoes An Acre. (Charles M.' Harper in Review of Reviews.) Re-views.) In 1S94, a year of widespread drouth, a South Dakota farmer. H. W. Campbell, who had been experimenting in tilling his claim, surprised his neighbors by harvesting harvest-ing a crop of potatoes that averaged 142 bushels an acre on thirty-two acres, while those on adjoining farms were nearly a failure. He gave as his guide in conquering con-quering the semi-arid conditions a variation varia-tion from the usual method of tillage. Ordinarily the farmer turns over the furrow fur-row with the plow, and cultivates the top only sufficiently to insure the destruction destruc-tion of weeds. Mr. Campbell's plan was to plow very deep, and by means of specially spe-cially constructed implements, pack the bottom of the furrow. The top he kept well cultivated, approaching as closely as possible to making tine dust over the entire en-tire field. Even when there were no weeds showing, the cultivation was continued, con-tinued, the object being to form a blanket blan-ket of tine soil above the seed bed and so retain to the end of the season a greater portion than usual of the rainfall, somewhat limited in that longitude. The theory was simple and the practice easy. It has gained a widespread following, and is becoming one of the accepted principles prin-ciples of the farming of the new west. It means, when carried to perfection, that the natural rain waters will be absorbed readily into the ground, that they will be held there by the packing of the bottom bot-tom of the furrow slice, and that undue evaporation will be prevented by the stratum of dust above. Over the semi-arid region, where the rainfall is only about twelve inches a year, little or no moisture falls after the middle of June until autumi. Then it is that the corn withers, the wheat shrivels and the fruit trees lose their stre-ngth. But it is noticed that if a quantity of coarse sand be scattered over a bit ot soil, no matter how dry the summer, there will always be beneath it moist earth. So it was argued that if the bottom bot-tom of the plowed surface could be packed to retain the spring rains and the top of the field could by frequent harrowing har-rowing be kept in a sandlike state of fineness, the full value .of the rainfall might be utilized. The flood of muddy waters that formerly rushed away toward to-ward the sea after every rain cease's, for the rains have gone into the ground where they fell. It is a new condition, and one that appeals to the farmer with great force. mu |