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Widtsoe, John Andreas, 1872-1952

"Dry-Farming : a System of Agriculture for Countries under a Low Rainfall"

Disk the land immediately after
harvest; follow as soon as possible with the plow; follow the plow
with the subsurface packer; and follow the packer with the smoothing
harrow. Disk the land again as early as possible in the spring and
stir the soil deeply and carefully after every rain. Sow thinly in
the fall with a drill. If the grain is too thick in the spring,
harrow it out. To make sure of a crop, the land should be "summer
tilled," which means that clean summer fallow should be practiced
every other year, or as often as may be necessary.
These methods, with the exception of the subsurface packing, are
sound and in harmony with the experience of the great dry-farm
sections and with the principles that are being developed by
scientific investigation. The "Campbell system" as it stands to-day
is not the system first advocated by him. For instance, in the
beginning of his work he advocated sowing grain in April and in rows
so far apart that spring tooth harrows could be used for cultivating
between the rows. This method, though successful in conserving
moisture, is too expensive and is therefore superseded by the
present methods.


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