The Hereford Brand, Vol. 10, No. 19, Ed. 1 Friday, June 17, 1910 Page: 4 of 12
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The Hereford Brand Friday, June 17,1910
SURFACE CULTIVATORS
Single Row Surface Cultivators, Double Row Surface Cultivators, Six Shovel Piv-
otal Single Dutchman Cultivators, Go-Devil Disc Cultivators for listed ground, Captain
Kidd High Wheel Cultivators. The kind of Implements that is a pleasure to run.
Guaranteed to do first-class work or our goods.
Hereford Hardware "ESSr1,
Soil Moisture Conservation
Scientific Method Employed to Conserve Natural
Precipitation to Be Used by Plants at a
Time When Required
''Dry farming" is a name given to
designate the difference between
farming in the arid and semi-arid
Sections by natural precipitation and
the artifical application of water
known as irrigation. It is a scienti-
fic system providing methods of con-
serving moisture to be used when
plants require the same. The sys-
tem is not complex—is in fact sim-
ple to those who are willing to learn,
but the rules laid down for the guid-
ance of those undertaking to raise
crops when the precipitation is not
too plenty, must be followed, the
work done properly and intelligence
used, because no hard fast rule can
be made to apply to all conditions.
. Dry farming has been carried on
in California for forty years and in
Eastern Washington and Oregon
since 1885. when the big influx of
Nebraska and Kansas farmers
sought that section of the United
States for cheaper land and larger
holdings. It is a long way from be-
ing a new proposition in the states
west of the Rockies. One of the
most important things in connection
with it is to understand why the dif-
ferent kinds of work are done— why
the farmer is taking big chances
when he scratches the roil three or
four inches deep—call it plowing
and then in a half-hearted way run
the harrows over the plowed ground,
possibly half as much as should
have been done.
A great many people have never
considered how soils will become
packed through wild animals, also
domestic stock roaming over it for
ages The natural result cannot
fail to make such land all but im-
pervious to moisture. Every farm-
er knows that if he opens up the
soil fairly deep such soil will absorb
rain and snow when it melts. Fur-
ther, he knows that cultivation after
heavy rains, when the the land is
sufficiently dry to take a team and
harrow on it. that he will make a
surface mulch (which should not be
too fine) which will help to conserve
or hold that moisture in the soil.
Relative to plowing and moisture
conservation an article from the Da-
kota Farmer, by George Edward
will prove of interest to the reader:
"The depth to cultivate should be
governed by the depth to which the
rainfall wets the soil," writes a
Nebraska farmer in the Dry Farm-
ing Congress Bulletin. "If we cul-
tivate deeper than the falling rain
we cannot conserve the
moisture, because the clods lying be-
low the layer wet by showers will
dry out and the grain sprouts and
dies for want of moisture before the
next shower comes."
The majority of dry farmers oper-
ating in the semi-arid West will take
issue with the statement. The exper-
ience of many of the older dry
farmers as reported in the official
reports of the Dry Farming Con-
gress and in the agricultural papers
has been that the depth to which the
rainfall wets the ground depends
largely upon the depth to which the
ground is opened by deep plowing.
Getting moisture into the soil is
one of the most important problems
before the dry land farmer. It is
purely a physical problem and its
solution is found in the application
of simple physical laws, according
to the most successful dry fanners.
On the hardbaked, compact soils of
the high Western plains, the mois-
ture does not penetrate beneath the
sod except where the ground has
been opened by plowing. In order
to get moisture into the soil to sus-
tain the growing crops, men are forc-
ed to open the ground so that it
will absorb the rainfall. It has been
the experience on these lands that
the moisture is held in the soil to a
depth proportionate to that to which
the ground is opened by plowing.
It the sod is not broken, the mois-
ture which falls upon it in the form
of rain, runs off in tiny rivulets that
become creeks in the deep arroyos
and swell the volume of distant riv-
ers to flood stage. The falling wat-
er will not take the trouble to break
open the surface of the ground in
order to penetrate the soil; it natur-
ally will take the easiest course to-
ward its level, which always is the
level of the far-off sea.
On the other hand, if the farmer
will break open the surface of the
ground and shatter the compactness
of the soil mass, leaving numberless
tiny interstices to the extreme depth
of the furrow, the water, naturally,
will sink into these interstices and
following its tendency to seek its
level, will penetrate to the depth to
which the ground is broken.
Deep plowing experiments have
been conducted at many points in
the semi-arid West during a number
of years. Deep plowing has found
a place in the established farm oper-
ations of hundreds of successful
farmers. George L. Fatrell of
Utah; Dr. V. T. Cooke, stste dir-
ector of dry farm experiments of
Wyoming. E. R. Parsons of Colo-
rado, A. M. Axelson of Colorado,
Prof. B. C. Buffum of Wyoming and
a score of others might be mention-
ed among the more eminent advo-
cates of deep plowing. Deep plow-
ing has been so commonly accepted
as essential to the highest in agricul-
ture that farm machinery manufac-
turers are making plows and trac-
tion outfits suitable for breaking the
greatest possible depth. Specially
constructed deep tilling machines
were exhibited at the Fourth Dry
Farming Congress and are being
utlized on the dry land farms in this
and other countries.
Deep plowing does accomplish
what the farmer wants done; it en-
ables him to get moisture into his
ground to practically any desired
depth. As a result of ten and
twelve inch plowing through a series
of years, soil reservoirs have been
created in the midst of the desert.
In deep-plowed, properly cultivated
tracts, moisture is perceptible to al-
most unbelieveable depths, whereas,
on the sod adjacent where the ground
has never been broken by plowing,
moisture is not preceptible to any
appreciable depth. The records of
the experimental dry farm at Chey-
enne, Wyo., of Mr. Parsons' farm
on the high, dry plains of Colorado,
and of farms in many other parts of
the west, are proof of this.
The Nebraska farmer, quoted
above, appears to have gotten his
premise reversed. Instead of plow-
ing to the depth to which rainfall
penetrates, the successful dry farm-
er makes the rain penetrate the
ground to greater depth by plowing
as deeply as possible.
The same farmer continues: "If
we cultivate deeper than the falling
rain penetrates, we cannot conserve
the moisture , because the clods ly-
ing below the layer wet by the show-
ers will dry out and the grain sprouts
and dies for want of moisture before
the next shower comes."
Here again, he runs counter to
the theory and practice of dry farm-
ing. If it is important for the dry
farmer to get moisture into his soil
it is equally important that he keep
it there. The conservation of mois-
ture in the soil is a fundamental
principle of dry fanning. Deep
plowing has been proven the most
effective way to get the moisture in
the soil. Systematic cultivation has
been found the most effective way to
keep it there.
In all the discussion of dry farm-
ing the mulch is emphasized. Every
authority on dry farming constantly
urges the farmer to get a mulch on
his ground and keep it there. With-
out the mulch, the moisture will es-
cape and be lost. What is mulch?
The mulch, as generally described
by dry farming authorities, is a lay-
er of loose earth, one to three in-
ches thick on the surface of the cul-
tivated field. The theory of the
mulch is this:
Soil moisture by action of capil-
larity, rises to the surface whence it
vanishes by evaporation; shallow
surface cultivation, by pulverizing
the upper layer of the soil, destroys
the capillarity of that layer and pro-
vides a blanket of loose earth thru
which the soil moisture will not
easily pass, and loss by evaporation
is thereby reduced to the minmum.
The idea expressed in the words
quoted from the Nebraska farmer is
the same that has been held by old
fashioned farmers in many districts
from timimmemorial. It is not a co-
incidence that in those same districts
the crop losses from periodical
drouth are recorded at the maxi-
mum. The idea of making the til-
lage subservient to climatic condi-
tions is responsible for the drouth
losses. Make the climatic condi-
tions subservient to the tillage meth-
ods, and you will have solved the
drouth problem. Having gotten the
moisture captive in your soil, culti-
vate the surface according to the
systems advocated by successful dry
farmers and described in detail in
the official reports and publications
of the Dry Farming Congress. Fol-
low the plow with the harrow the
same day. When the surface be-
gins too dry and bake, harrow the
ground before the moisture has a
chance to escape. Eternal harrow-
ing is the price of harvests, accord-
ing to the Patrick Henrys of dry
farming, and since these sages of
of the new agriculture are proving
the wisdam of their theories by har-
vesting successful crops with min-
imum rainfall, it seems reasonable
to believe that they know what they
are doing. During one season 50
per cent of the rainfall was held in
the soil by dry farming methods of
cultivation at the North Platte sta-
tion according to a report recently
issued by the United States depart-
ment of agriculture. Clean and
constant tillage has resulted in stor-
ing and holding moisture in the soil
on many farms so that the roots of
grain always have a supply to draw
from, while waiting for the next
shower to come along.
But up to date there is no record
of a soil reservoir having been creat-
ed by tillage methods where deep
plowing and constant, clean cultiva-
tion have not been practiced.
Gasoline stoves and |ce cream
freezers at the "right pr^be. Nelson.
17-tf
Fsrmers should est
more ostmesl.
Although the farmer of today is able
to buy almost anything he wants to
wear or to eat he isn't paving enough
attention to food values when it cornea
to his own table.
If he has been watching the exten-
sive researches and experiments on
the question of the best human food
for muscle and brain he will heed the
advice from all sides to "eat more
Quaker Scotch Oats.''
Quaker Scotch Oats is mentioned
because it is recognised in this country
and Europe as the best of all oatmeals.
Feeding farm hands on Quaker Scotch
Oats means getting more work out of
them than if you feed them on anything
else.
er hot climates it is packed in her-
m "tallv sealed tins; and in regular
P *es« a
Wanted!
1 want 2 or 3 sections
or Castro counties. 1 want
well improved place at the
other properties as first pa
will assume or execute Ve
mainder, if the time and
unimproved land. Do
fenced or not. Land mu
title must be perfect S
uext week.
and in Deaf Smith
in a good 20-acre,
f Hereford and some
on the land and I
Lien notes for the re-
interest suit Want
care whether it is even
be priced right and the
me next door to postoffice
J. N. Russell
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Elliot, A. C. The Hereford Brand, Vol. 10, No. 19, Ed. 1 Friday, June 17, 1910, newspaper, June 17, 1910; Hereford, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth253558/m1/4/: accessed May 8, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Deaf Smith County Library.