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Show PREPARATION OF SEED BED Spike-Toothed Harrow Fines the Clods and Compacts Soil Below Surface Use of 6weep8. (By J. D. TINSLEY. New Mexico.) In preparing the seed bed on our dry farms good Judgment must be exercised exer-cised In using the. spike-toothed harrow. har-row. This Implement fines the clods and compacts the soil below the sur-, face. This pulverizing action on the surface offsets the advantage gained in firming. Of the implements for working the surface of plowed land, the best which have been observed in use are cultivators with wing-sweep, attachments. The only objection to th implements is that they are not wiire enough to cover sufficient gr'ind at each trip across the field so thbjt the work is slow. I. E. Homsher of Levy attaches sweeps to the frame of Lis grain drill. This implement materially increases in-creases the area of land that can be covered in a day by a man and team. An implement of this kind that would cover a strip of field 16 feet wide and require four horses is a very desirable addition to the list of dry-farming implements. im-plements. A very important point in decreasing the cost of producing dry-farming crops is cutting out extra men, or what amounts to the same thing, increasing in-creasing the area of land that can be cultivated properly by one man. In harrowing large grain fields four horses are often hitched to three sections sec-tions of the harrow and with this outfit out-fit a man or boy can cover 30 acres in a day. If the implement carrying 16 feet of sweeps were adopted, it could be used for preparing land for killing weeds before planting and by removing remov-ing some of the sweeps it could be used for cultivating row crops. Mr. Homsher uses the drill frame, carrying carry-ing sweeps, to kill weeds and to mulch the surface 6f the plowed ground. He then removes the sweeps, puts on the seed box and three drill spouts and plants the bean crop. The sweeps are then replaced with proper spacing and the crop is cultivated with this implement. imple-ment. This enables him to plant three rows and afterwards to cultivate two rows each trip. The sweeps are kept sharp and kill weeds better than the spike-toothed harrow; throw the dirt into ridges; are adjustable in depth, and do not break th clods, but raise them to the surface, while letting the fine dirt sift down where it is wanted, around Ihe seeds and roots. |
