However, until the wheat and
other grains are ten to twelve inches high, it is perfectly safe to
harrow them. The teeth should be set backward to diminish the
tearing up of the plants, and the implement weighted enough to break
the soil crust thoroughly. This practice has been fully tried out
over the larger part of the dry-farm territory and found
satisfactory.
So vitally important is a permanent soil mulch for the conservation
for plant use of the water stored in the soil that many attempts
have been made to devise means for the effective cultivation of land
on which small grains and grasses are growing. In many places plants
have been grown in rows so far apart that a man with a hoe could
pass between them. Scofield has described this method as practiced
successfully in Tunis. Campbell and others in America have proposed
that a drill hole be closed every three feet to form a path wide
enough for a horse to travel in and to pull a large spring tooth
cultivator' with teeth so spaced as to strike between the rows of
wheat. It is yet doubtful whether, under average conditions, such
careful cultivation, at least of grain crops, is justified by the
returns.
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