OCR Text |
Show DRY FARMING POINTS Potatoes Are Good Crop for Rotating Ro-tating With Grain. System of Rotation Will Produce Four Crops In Five Years Land Must Be Handled at Right Time and Not Nsglsctsd. The climate has not changed, nor will It change, but man baa and will continue to do ao. And why Is be changing? Because there are ao many devoting their Uvea to finding out facta and giving them to the human hu-man rac In a concrete form. Men like King, Campbell and HU-gard HU-gard and others, too numerous to mention, men-tion, have practically devoted their Uvea to the building of a new agriculture. agri-culture. Hut for such men aa these, we would not be tilling the deserts of the west and making paying crops In years like the present one. Campbell, the great apostle of dry fanning, la the first man that ever gave us a complete com-plete set of rules for dry farming, and the writer wishes to state that anyone any-one who will take bla book on dry farming and apply the rules laid down by him, will succeed, writes Norman K. Holden. in the Scientific Farmer. Of course, there are alwaya local conditions con-ditions that will modify them, i One of Professor Campbell's rules la to alwaya summer till and have two season's moisture for one rrop. The writer has found that system of rotating; rotat-ing; will produce four ciopa In Ave year, but In rotating one muat be quipped to handle the land at the right time and not neglect It If one Intends rotating. If it Is a grsln crop, the disk should follow Immediately behind be-hind the harvester. This should be done with summer tillage, but It la not absolutely necessary aa when a crop la to be planted the following year. After the disking, the land ahould be plowed, packed and harrowed. har-rowed. The following aprlni; It should be double disked and harrowed Sufficiently to make a good seed bed. Potatoes are a good crop to plant for rotating with grain. One should plant an Intertilled crop after grain. Canadian field peas are a good crop If they are planted In rows and cultivated. culti-vated. Corn la another and, where It can be grown, la probably the beat. Here Is a good rotation for one starting start-ing on aod: First year, plant small grain (preferably winter wheat or rye); second year, the aame, then summer till the ground; next crop, potatoes, po-tatoes, then Durum wheat Of course tbla rotation proposition must be carefully care-fully looked Into and If there la not sufficient moisture In the ground to warrant a crop, It la better to summer tllL The moisture In the ground can be ascertained by taking samples aa down aa the moisture goes and weighing the aame. I'lace the damp soil in an oven after It has been weighed, dry It and weigh again. This will give the amount of moisture. It la not advisable to crop unless there Is at least four lnchea of water stored. Another, and one of the most Important Impor-tant of all conditions to be understood, under-stood, la that the more Ideal conditions condi-tions of the aoll for plant life, the leas moisture It will take to grow the crop. That the year 1910 haa demon s( rater ra-ter that dry farming Is not a myth, la evidenoed by the reaulta obtained. The history of dry farming In Ileaver-bead Ileaver-bead county baa been a course in which something of real merit had all tboae forces to contend with that have tbelr origin In self-interest, lack of knowledge, etc. However, this seaaon haa proven to the most skeptical that dry farming Is aomethlng real, a line of agriculture that la aa aafe to embark em-bark Into as the Irrigation aystem. Tbla Is a rather bold assertion. Do the facta sustain It? |