Keep your soil busy all the time. Dr. Watts said, “Satan finds some mischief still, for idle hands to do,” and that might be paraphrased to read that “Nature has great store of weeds in idle lands to grow.” “Weeds are the farmer’s best friend, they force him to cultivate.” But that friendship is only true where it has that effect. The farmer who lets the weeds grow either in the garden rows or in the walks and hedges, is going to find them his worst enemy. They poison and suffocate his crop, and are also regular incubators of insects and diseases. The best way to fight them is to starve them out with paying crops. Therefore, as soon as one crop begins to ripen, plant another, and then another, and so on. To grow but one crop is risky, unless you are specializing and have prepared the best possible conditions for that one crop. For a special market this is very profitable. But usually companion-cropping is best. That gives two crops in the ground at the same time, one maturing before the other needs the space. Thus late celery may be planted between the rows of early celery; lettuce with early cabbage; radishes with beets or carrots; corn with squash, pumpkins or beans, and horse-radish with early onions or cauliflower. Irrigation for arid soils and drainage for wet or clayey soils, are the two opposite methods which bring astounding results. Any sort of drainage is better than no drainage, but the best form so far discovered is the tile drain laid about two and a half to four feet below the surface. This carries away the surplus water and prevents the roots of the crops being suffocated. On the other hand, irrigation supplies to the dry lands the moisture they need. The tremendous irrigation works carried on by the Government in the sandy, hitherto barren, reaches of the west, are bringing results even more tremendous than the works. Hard, wet soil will not grow crops and here is where the advantage of draining comes in. Drainage deepens the subsoil and removes the water; it deepens the surface also and makes more of the plant food in the soil available. Wet soil is sticky and hard for the seeds to push their way through; but drainage will improve its texture and make it crumble and fall apart easily, or as the experts say, it will make it “friable.” At the same time it will prevent it washing or “leaching” away. But even this does not tell all of the advantages of drainage. It warms the soil and by making the ground more porous allows the roots to go deeper in search of their food and moisture. This in turn enables plants to withstand drought and hot weather better and makes returns more sure. It also permits working the ground earlier in the spring and after rains, because, the more porous the soil, the quicker it absorbs and stores moisture that comes in rain.