Weekly journal-miner., 1911-04-26
DR, COOKS LECTURE
 ON DRY FARMING

| for the conservation of moisture, to | be practically assured of maximum crop, is to blow the ground, when it ] is in the right physical condition, eight or nine inches deep-the deeper i the better. Many men may be nere who came from the East, and they will say that when you blow up the subsoil you won't get any crop for f three or four years. That is true in the East. Our conditions are diff i ferent.
 ] I would suggest to the man who ] wants to conserve moisture that deep 1 blowing and thorough cultivation of the soil will get results. The grouhd should be plOwed eight or nire inches deep and should be narrowed at the same time it is plOwed if it is possible to do so. As I stated in the beginning of this discourse we do not know anything about agricul- ture. Just think of tive have been farming for twenty centuries and we have not awakened, until ! just few years ago, to the fact that we should harrow the ground at the same time it is plOweJ.
 A large majority of farmers, and I, myself, have been among the num- | bel. when going in the fell D blow, will figure on handling a twenty to fifty acre tract and will put one or more teams on the ground to be | plOwed, after ALL the blowing has | been done. to do the narrowing 1 Sometimes they are able to go ahead and blow without a break until 1t is all done; at other times a rain or snow storm intervenes and stops the work for some time. Then when We go on the ground again there wOu.d i be clods of dirt as big as my head. save every drop of moisture We had been done immediately after the blowing, day by day, the ground would have been like a sponge, and would have taken up any moistue that might have fallen.
 You can readily understand that when you blow your ground in the right physical condition, and the harrow comes right along benin l, you can do more effective work than if the narrowing is left until two or three weeks afterward. You simply i cannot get your ground in the same condition if it is narrowed any later. Here in this altitude, where you are farming under clear skies, for the l conservation of moisture. you can realize how important it is that, just as soon as you turn soil over and ex- pose it to the atmosphere. you must save every drop of moistrrue. We know if we have some wheat that happens to get wet we toss it up and dry it out by handling. Therefore, when blowing our ground. without immediate narrowing, we are leaving 1t loose; air gets into it and drys it ] out. Harrows are made now which can he attached to blows. Any far mer with ordinary ingenuity can make harrow which can be attached to and follow the blow. If you are using fourteen or sixteen inch blow. and the horses have all they can do. a small horse or pony, at the side of l the team, will drag a harrow large enough to handle the furrow you are l turning over. If you cannot do that. then do as l had to do, and that is: | The man would blow for a certain time and then hitch to the narrow before noon and before he goes to lunch, and every bit of land that has been plowed that forenoon is harrow ed, and the same method is followed | Tn the afternoon. After every HEAVY rain my land is narrowed not after EVERY rain.
 It has been recommended bv some men doing the same kind of work as myself, that you should go onto your land after EVERY rain.
 DON'T!
 You will lose more moisture in this way than you can conserve. I men, tion after every HEAVY rain to get out and cultivate. Whyl You all know that when you see a sauce pan on the stove with the lid on it helps keep the steam in, and you would naturally conclude that if a crust formed over your land your moisture would be kept in.
 Exactly the opposite.
 Just as soon as a crust forms upon your soil, moisture comes up by cap lllarity. If the sun is intense your soil cracks open and the moisture comes up. If you will get onto your ground as soon as it is dry enough. so that dirt will not stick to your narrow teeth, harrow it all over. and you will break up this surface crust and have what is called "soil muleh," and, as stated before, when you have that, you lose hardly any moisture
 One of the greatest mistakes the average dry farmer makes is to over seed. l met a gentleman yesterday who told me he was in the habit of putting in ninety to one hundred and twenty pOunds-a bushel to two bushels-per acre, and he was some what astOnished when l told him what l put in.
 On the State Farm, on the 31st of August, last year, l sowed thirty two pounds of winter wheat per acre; the weather was ideal; my grain stooled or tillered very much; the problem that has been bOthering me all the winter was how to thin it.
 l believe l put on too much by twelve pounds per acre. Just thnk of twenty pounds of wheat per acre,
 I want you to understand this fact. that when 1 speak of small amount