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Show PRACTICE OF DEEP PLOWING It Is Necessary for Water Conserva tlon Farmers Alive to Scientific Aids Just Developed. In the new farming, deep plowing la practiced. The heavy traction plowa bite deeper than t!;o ordinary plow-share. plow-share. Deep plowing la a necessity for water conservation. Every drop of water must be held In the soil If a crop Is to be grown. This Is best j dt'ne by plowing deep and then breaking break-ing all lumps with the cultivator. Where lumps are left In the top soil, the wind quickly dries them and draws the moisture out of the soli. But when the soil la plowed deep and the surface tightly packed, all moisture mois-ture that fails Is retained for an Incredible In-credible length of t'te, and feed the roots of the wheat durlug the um-iner um-iner months when no rain falls. The giant seeders plant only ball a bushel of wheat to the acre, hlcl Is sufficient for the needs of the "low grade farmer." I'nder such conditions a yield of ten bushels of wheat to the acre means a good profit to the Individual Indi-vidual who farms by wholesale Such a yield would spell poverty for the small farmer with a hundred or two acres but there Is where the differ ence between hlt;h grade farming and low grade farmliiK comes In, Just as In mining. The farmers who have begun thla task of "whipping the desert" are alive to all the scientific aids that have been developed In recent years. They have studied the various dry-farming dry-farming theories from Campbell's down, but are generally following the "Kelly system. Kelly Is a plain, hard handed farmer w ho has lived for years on the high plains of eastern Colorado, and who haa followed hla own unique method of crop raising with aucb good results that he Is now wealthy. Kelly plows deep the first year, but afterward pays little attention atten-tion to the cultivation of the soil. Instead In-stead of flghtltiR the weeds and Russian Rus-sian thistles, he uses them as an aid. !! plants his wheat among them, because be-cause the weeds act as a protection to the seeds, when the hot, dry winds of early spring and late fall are blowing. The question of acclimatized seed la also one to consider In reclaiming the desert, either by wholesale or retail means. About twenty years nco P.obert Gauss of Denver began a series of experiments, In the belief that a drought-resisting wheat could be developed. He conducted an experimental ex-perimental farm on the high plains enst of Denver, each year planting selected seed from the crop of the preceding year. In this way he worked noticeable changes In the form of wheat, and his theory promised prom-ised such excellent returns that now It is being carried on by the department depart-ment of agriculture, as well as by various state agricultural colleges In the west and (the Carnegie Desert laboratory at Tucson, ArU. With grains adapted to the peculiar pe-culiar soli and climatic conditions of the semi-arid region, and with giant traction machinery plowing and cultivating cul-tivating the grazing grounds of the buffalo, the conquest of the prairie would seem to be In sight, and the hardest of American agricultural problems would appear to be solved. |