He
further explains that continuous grain cropping, even with careful
plowing and spring and fall tillage, is unsuccessful; but holds that
certain rotations of crops, including grain and a hoed crop every
other year, are often more profitable than grain alternating with
clean summer fallow. He further believes that the fallow year every
third or fourth year is sufficient for Great Plains conditions.
Jardine explains that whenever fall grain is grown in the Great
Plains area, the fallow is remarkably helpful, and in fact because
of the dry winters is practically indispensable.
This latter view is confirmed by the experimental results obtained
by Atkinson and others at the Montana Experiment Stations, which are
conducted under approximately Great Plains conditions.
It should be mentioned also that in Saskatchewan, in the north end
of the Great Plains area, and which is characteristic, except for a
lower annual temperature, of the whole area, and where dry-farming
has been practiced for a quarter of a century, the clean summer
fallow has come to be an established practice.
This recent discussion of the place of fallowing in the agriculture
of the Great Plains area illustrates what has been said so often in
this volume about the adapting of principles to local conditions.
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