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
Cultivators for stirring the land on which crops are growing are not
used extensively on dry-farms. Usually the spring tooth harrow is
employed for this work. In dry-farm sections, where corn is grown,
the cultivator is frequently used throughout the season. Potatoes
grown on dry-farms should be cultivated throughout the season, and
as the potato industry grows in the dry-farm territory there will be
a greater demand for suitable cultivators. The cultivators to be
used on dry-farms are all of the riding kind. They should be so
arranged that the horse walking between two rows carries a
cultivator that straddles several rows of plants and cultivates the
soil between. Disks, shovels, or spring teeth may be used on
cultivators. There is a great variety on the market, and each farmer
will have to choose such as meet most definitely his needs.
The various forms of harrows and cultivators are of the greatest
importance in the development of dry-farming. Unless a proper mulch
can be kept over the soil during the fallow season, and as far as
possible during the growing season, first-class crops cannot be
fully respected.
The roller is occasionally used in dry-farming, especially in the
uplands of the Columbia Basin. It is a somewhat dangerous implement
to use where water conservation is important, since the packing
resulting from the roller tends to draw water upward from the lower
soil layers to be evaporated into the air. Wherever the roller is
used, therefore, it should be followed immediately by a harrow. It
is valuable chiefly in the localities where the soil is very loose
and light and needs packing around the seeds to permit perfect
germination.
Subsurface packing
The subsurface packer invented by Campbell is [shown in Figure
83--not shown--ed.]. The wheels of this machine eighteen inches in
diameter, with rims one inch thick at the inner part, beveled two
and a half inches to a sharp outer edge, are placed on a shaft, five
inches apart. In practice about five hundred pounds of weight are
added.
This machine, according to Campbell, crowds a one-inch wedge into
every five inches of soil with a lateral and a downward pressure and
thus packs firmly the soil near the bottom of the plow-furrow.
Subsurface packing aims to establish full capillary connection
between the plowed upper soil and the undisturbed lower soil-layer;
to bring the moist soil in close contact with the straw or organic
litter plowed under and thus to hasten decomposition, and to provide
a firm seed bed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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