Oakes weekly Republican. (Oakes, Dickey County, D.T. [i.e. N.D.]) 1883-1898, 1896-02-28
A Valuable Lecture Oh this Important
Subject.

H. w. Campbell, editor of Soil
Culture, spoke in this city last Fri
day afternoon. He was enroute to
Jamestown and had not expected to
lecture here, but owing to train SER
vice he was obliged to lie over here
one day, and consequently on brief
notice spoke ON Growing crops with
out rain. AS the notice had been
given out but short time there were
only few farmers in to hear the leo
ture, which is greatly to be regretted.
Mr.. Campbell is not farmer oa
paper, but his knowledge is from ac-
tual experiments on his farm near
Columbia, where he has lived until
within comparatively short time.
Mr.. Campbell is OF the opinion that
we have enough rain every year to
mature crop if we only could store
up the rain fall and allow the crops
to draw from it during tho hot, dry
weather. =
He advises deep plowing, 8 or 8
inches, in the fall as soon as the crop
is taken off, to be followed by sub
soil packer, an instrument much re-
sembling an Havana press drill.
This is done to establish capillary
attraction. After the packer has
gone over the land narrowing
should be given the land and the
soil is then ready for winter.
In the spring as soon as the land
is fit to be worked, q light harrow
should be used and then the grain
should be sown in drills, IL, l6 or IS
inches apart.
During the season, after every rain,
the ground should be cultivated with
a light spring tooth harrow. Guilt
vation should not extend to greater
depth than two inches. The sub-soil
packer works like disk harrow set
out straight, and in the absence of
a packer a disc may used loaded
down we'll.
Spring tooth harrows can be pur-
chased, and with them one man can
cultivate 25 acres day.
Mr.. Campbell advises cultivating a
crop at least eight times during
the summer. or at least until good
I crop is assured.
The object of the frequent cultiva-
tion is to form sort of dust blanket
which prevents evaporation.
The stubble as now plowed under
and left to lie loosely in the furrow,
prevents connection with the sub
soil, and therefore the moisture is
not reached py the growing crops
neither does the hard subsoil retain
the moisture as it does when treated
by Mr.. Campbell's theory. Should
it be impossible to plow as deep as
required with an ordinary plow, the
speaker advocated the use of a sub.
soil plow.
1t is quite certain that some meth
od could be employed to retain the
moisture here, as we have quite as
much rainfall as in parts of Califor-
MIA, where good crops have been
grown latterly without the aid of ir.
rigation. Their method of handling
their land, is, in many respects, sim
liar to the above described method.
Some may advance the argument
that it will not do to cultivate thor
oughly here as the wind would af-
feet the soil to much; but by this
plan it is said the land will not drift
after one crop has been raised and it
has been plowed, as the roots will sc
fill the soil that it is held together
very compactly, which is not the case
now.
1t will be well for our farmers to
experiment with small tracts at least.
1t is not necessary to launch into this
method entirely, but a trial would
show what could be accomplished.