The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1899-12-29
SCIENTIFIC FLOWING.


is It that will work down fine ? Why
the surface, of course. but the plant
roots do not grow on the surface, hut
near he bottom of the burrows and
It is the bottom of the furrowso that
we want to work down fine.
Here is just where the farmer is
very much mistaken in his views.
The surface must not be left as the
pillow throws it, neither sh 0ud it be
rolled or narrowed, but a subpacker
should be run over 1t to force out the
surplus air and thus prevent the soil
from packing or pudding as we call
1t. Not one farmer in u hundred
ever dreams, az he works over the
eurface of fall blowing IN the spring
time, that the bottom of that land is
puddled from one half to three inches
deep having "A layer of hard, COM
pact, air-tight soil that Is almost
water proof and a nonconductor OF
both air and water and resembles
dry blottiHg paper more than any
thing else. If he should see this he
would be startled and want toplow
1t all over again. Now defy any
man to prove that every single job of
fall blowing that Is left just az the
pillow throws it is not more or less in
this condition and sometimes this
condition extends clear to the surface
as 1t did in the spring of '07 when all
fall blowing was run together into
solid, compact mass. Now here are
the facts to remember: plowed soil
always begins to puddle or cement at
the bottom of the furrow and works
from the bottom up. and it is only a
question of the violence of the winter
rainfall that controls the depth of
this pudding or cementing together
The defending rain meets the loose
soil at the top of the ground and as
liquid-mud seeks, its lowest level
filling up the air spaces left in the
soil at the bottom of this furrow
thus expelling the air and settling
into one compact puddle. the moisture
settling away and leaving a strip of
hard, dry land and compact soil al
most cas- inpervious to roots as
80 much cement would be. This
strip may be thin, but every rain
adds to 1t until every spring that the
farmer imagines he is creating such
fine seed bed, the bottom of the
furrow presents an almost impossible
barrier to moisture, either up or
down and to plant roots. The very
thing the farmer thinks he should do,
that 10, leave the ground just as the
pillow threw it is the very thing that
causes the pudding at the bottom OF
the turrow together with rainfall.
If you take saucer and bore hole
in the bottom of 1t and cover this hole
with strips of cloth, then pile up in
the saucer pile of dry, fine soil
then spray it with an aiomizer until
the soil melts and runs down into the
bottom of the saucer. Then let ID
stand until the moisture has drained
through the cloth in the bottom OF
the saucer and you will have a puddl-
ing mass of mud, air tight, that when
dried resembles sand stone strip
Slack some lime until it Is Liquid
lime, then run it off into a hole in the
ground and as soon as the water
settles out of it, you have the same
condition. Both of these experiments
exactly represent the bottom of the
furrow or fall blowing after heavy
rain has fallen on it. This is fact
that cannot possibly be disputed
What terrible condition for plant
roots to reach out into.
We know that in order to make the
bottom of an artificial pond water
tight so it won't leak the builder
puddles the bottom by driving stocf
over 1t when wet. Now if pudding
the bottom of pond will make /
water-tight, why will not the puddl
ing of the bottom of the burrows max,
it water-tight also ?
AS matter of fact it does anC
where this condition exists If we &,
out on our plowed fields after heav.
rain, we will slump down as deep a
the pillow went or more properly unit
the foot reaches this compact strip
AS we slump down boot top deep IL
mud we remark, chow mellow tn
pillow left the soil to get 80 wet" whel
as a matter of tact, the water 10 pre-
vented settling by the compact con
dition of the furrow and soon tn
whole mass will be pudding or &c
mentiug to the surface. The mex
time we pillow this land tho pillow will
scrape along on the bottom of wher
we plowed last year and we find
almost impossible to plow below thi
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