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Show oo .SEES. DANGER IN DISCING. (E. R. Parsons, Dry-Farm Expert, Tells of Practices to be Avoided.) We have been watching tho effects of shallow plowing and discing for nearly thirty years, and still wo can see no good In it. Every dry year the same thing happons. In 1908 we went over thousands or acres where the cropB had been disced In on stubble. Wo saw oats burned out six and eight Inches; spring wheat completely fired Just beginning to head; winter wheat that went only five bushels to the acre; and fields of corn on shallow-plowed sod that yielded nothing but a handful of fodder. The discing and shallow plowing habits come from the humid states, whero it rains sometimes twice a week, and small crops can always be raised by simply cultivating enough to keep the weeds out Farmers will aomtitlnics say, "We, can raise raoroby discing than plowing," plow-ing," ThlB is tnie-i 'because th'e surf tic1 c farmer seldom plows'moro than throe inches, and Tie can do this equalh-woir equalh-woir and tnOre quickly with the disc.' 0 he may jlow- .without harrowing, let the ground dry out aB ho goes, aud plant in a poorly prepared seed bed. An old friend of ours used to raise indifferent crops by plowing once In three ycnr.dnd discing in his seeds 'the twjo- intervening- years The first year hist oats would be about two to three feet high; the-second year, 18 Inched; nnd the third about a foot: but If a dry year happened, thero was nothing doing. He always would persist per-sist that ho could raise good crops ' " " i'i i ' muHOUMIt); "without plowing to carry his cattle through tho winter J, happened to ni'pet h'im in 1909. "Well," I said, 'how -did you como out last year?7 'Oh," ho said, "I bold my catllo." TKqu&auds of heads of cattle were cold in the fall of 190S for the sam6 reason. This put the market right j down and tho dry-farmers lost heavily Supposing wo plant a crop offspring wheat or oatb on corn stubble, what happons? Ninety per cent, of tho farmcryfut'ehttro oh'thctfitnbblo during dur-ing the wlnlor Tho ground becomes-had becomes-had and ovorpackod; wo disc this pn tho surface nnd plant the seed" For a while It docs splendidly, aud If the rains keep up will make a fair crop; but if dry weather comes and a crubt forms on tho surface or under the mulch, the crop is gone, for it Is solid underneath. It has never been plowed ' It is- the burface farmers who an. alwajs walling about this crust under the mulch, but those who belong lo the deep-plowing school pa no attention atten-tion to lu for they still have plenty of room for the roots of their crops down below, and If the mulch above tho crust Is In proper shape thero Is no more evaporation than thero was before, A man wrote to Tno onco and asked ask-ed what le bhould do for the crust under the mulch I wrote back and said "Next year plow deep' His answer was "How did you find out that I dldn t plow. deep1" Tho worBt consequenco of discing without, plowing. Is tho effect it has on next year's crop. The Ground being be-ing hard, the water ponotrates very little, tho available moisture is used up by the crop, and the surplus evaporates evap-orates or runs off. Nothing is saved for next year In dry-farming, If we work only for the present, wo are living from hand to mouth The icry foundation of this branch of agriculture is to farm for the future. Store up moisture In tho soil for next year and the ear after, keep track of It with the pick and shovel or with a ground augur, and j ou will soon find out which style of farming pays best |