The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1900-06-20
AGRICULTURAL.
Cultivating Dry Soils,

Cultivating Dry Soils,
Where tillage is practiced after the |
crops are up cultivation has for its OBJ.
ject the development of plant food as
well as the killing of weeds, the saving
of soil moisture and maintaining the |
right soil texture, To secure these
ends, says F. II. King in Rural New
Yorker, early cultivation can to advant-
age be deeper and more frequent than
later cultivation. When it ceases to be |
desirable to cultivate for the purpose
of aerating the soil, and the main OBJ
ject is to kill weeds and conserve soil |
moisture, it is then desirable to cult
vate as often as is necessary to main
tain good mulch. While the soil is
wet the cultivation should be more fire.
quent, usually as often as once in sew
en- to ten days. After the soil becomes
quite dry, as happens in period of
drought, then the civilizations may not
be necessary oftener than once in two
weeks, but judgment must be exer-
cised In this as in all other matters
If the deeper soil just below the mulch
is still quite damp the tendency is for
the moisture to creep up into the mulch
and reconvert it into comparatively
firm soil, and leave the mulch too shall
low; when the mulch comes to be
much less than two inches deep, that
is, when the soil becomes damp at
distance of two inches below the sur
face, there will usually be enough loss
of moisture through the upper mulch
to make it worth while to cultivate
again, but if the dry soil has depth of
two or three inches there is little to be
gained in stirring the soil if the mulch
is already light and loose.
OF course whenever a rain comes
during the season of cultivation, which
vets through the whole mulch, it is
very important to cultivate as soon
after such rains as possible, because if
this is not done the wet mulch will
hasten the capillary rise of water from
deep in the ground, and bring about a
loss of not only the rain which has
fallen, but considerable portion of
the deeper soil moisture. Late in the
season, especially with corn and pota-
toes, it is questionable whether cult
walton will not do more harm than
good, even though the mulch has be-
come fairly firm. 1t is the habit of
most crops on which intertillage is
practiced to throw up in July roots very
close to the surface, evidently for the
purpose of taking advantage of ,the
plant food which capillary and rapid
evaporation tend to concentrate at the
surface, and also to take advantage of
the lighter rains, which after the soil
becomes dry, seldom penetrate deeper
than two to three inches. 1t will be
readily understood that after the soil
has become occupied close to the sur
face with these fine feeders, cultivation
at such time would not only hasten
the loss of water that is only located in
the surface two or three inches, but it
would destroy the roots which are
there to utilize that water as soon as it
falls, and with it to take up the nitrates
and other soluble plant foods which
have been concentrated near the sur
face, and which the rains have dis.
solved. 1t will be seen from this state
ment that the correspondents judg-
ment as to the slight gain to be secured |
from frequent cultivation after the
mulch is thoroughly dry is essentially
in accord with sound principles.