Dry-Farming : A System of Agriculture for Countries under a Low RainfallWidtsoe, John Andreas
Science
Dry-Farming : A System of Agriculture for Countries under a Low Rainfall
Widtsoe, John Andreas
Dry farming
Plowing, or the turning over of the soil to a depth of from seven to
ten inches for every crop, is a fundamental operation of
dry-farming. The plow, therefore, becomes one of the most important
implements on the dry-farm. Though the plow as an agricultural
implement is of great antiquity, it is only within the last one
hundred years that it has attained its present perfection. It is a
question even to-day, in the minds of a great many students, whether
the modern plow should not be replaced by some machine even more
suitable for the proper turning and stirring of the soil. The
moldboard plow is, everything considered, the most satisfactory plow
for dry-farm purposes. A plow with a moldboard possessing a short
abrupt curvature is generally held to be the most valuable for
dry-farm purposes, since it pulverizes the soil most thoroughly, and
in dry-farming it is not so important to turn the soil over as to
crumble and loosen it thoroughly. Naturally, since the areas of
dry-farms are very large, the sulky or riding plow is the only kind
to be used. The same may be said of all other dry-farm implements.
As far as possible, they should be of the riding kind since in the
end it means economy from the resulting saving of energy.
The disk plow has recently come into prominent use throughout the
land. It consists, as is well known, of one or more large disks
which are believed to cause a smaller draft, as they cut into the
ground, than the draft due to the sliding friction upon the
moldboard. Davidson and Chase say, however, that the draft of a disk
plow is often heavier in proportion to the work done and the plow
itself is more clumsy than the moldboard plow. For ordinary dry-farm
purposes the disk plow has no advantage over the modern moldboard
plow. Many of the dry-farm soils are of a heavy clay and become very
sticky during certain seasons of the year. In such soils the disk
plow is very useful. It is also true that dry-farm soils, subjected
to the intense heat of the western sun become very hard. In the
handling of such soils the disk plow has been found to be most
useful. The common experience of dry-farmers is that when sagebrush
lands have been the first plowing can be most successfully done with
the disk plow, but that after. the first crop has been harvested,
the stubble land can be best handled with the moldboard plow. All
this, however, is yet to be subjected to further tests.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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