Now, whether a crop be
hoed or not, it requires water for its growth, and land which is
continuously cropped even with a variety of crops is likely to be so
largely depleted of its moisture that, when the year of drouth
comes, failure will probably result.
The precariousness of dry-farming must be done away with. The year
of drouth must be expected every year. Only as certainty of crop
yield is assured will dry-farming rise to a respected place by the
side of other branches of agriculture. To attain such certainty and
respect clean summer fallowing every second, third, or fourth year,
according to the average rainfall, is probably indispensable; and
future investigations, long enough continued, will doubtless confirm
this prediction. Undoubtedly, a rotation of crops, including hoed
crops, will find an important place in dry-farming, but probably not
to the complete exclusion of the clean summer fallow.
Jethro Tull, two hundred years ago, discovered that thorough tillage
of the soil gave crops that in some cases could not be produced by
the addition of manure, and he came to the erroneous conclusion that
"tillage is manure.
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