The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1920-03-26
TABER MAN TELLS
OF DRY FARMING
Ed Casel Says Prospects
are as Good for
Men in Desert
as Ever

| EQ CaSel was III from laDer re
Gently and said the prospects for dry
farmers in the desert are as good az
ever. in his judgment. He has re-
mained on his farm south of -Tabel
and farmed it thru good seasons and
dry ones, and he considers that he
has proved that profitable crops can
be produced in good years and in the
| on years a farmer can make expenses
or better. He raised eight bushel of
wheat to the acre in 1919 and he ac-
complished it by careful cultivation.
Mr.. Casel finds that shallow plow-
ing and deep plowing are not profit
able. Flowing about six inches deep
is as good as any and then firming
the ground but not pulverizing the
surface into a dust so it can blow
away, is the best way to hold the
moisture. If there are multitude of
little clods on the surface it keeps
the wind from blowing the dust and
exposing the roots of the plants.
Mr.. easel is the community leader
at Taber, and he has been encour-
aging settlers to get good seed, and
conserve the moisture by making the
ground Arm right after plowing. One
year he carried that work too far and
baked and dried out like an unburnt
brick and the plants did not grow
well.
We wrote to Superintendent L. c.
Aicher asking what experiments they
had made on deep plowing, and he
reported as follows:
Tests at Government Station
Replying to your letter regarding
deep plowing will say that at this
station we have RUN depth of plow-
ing experiments at three different
depths; 4, Z, 10 inches. The results
obtained from this work discourage
deeper plowing than seven inches.
Two reasons seem to stand out for
reaching such a conclusion.
First, the soil moisture did not in
crease with the depth of plowing, be-
yond the seven inch depth. Second
that the additional horsepower re-
quired to plow the extra depth cost
more than any possible increased
yield could justify. l should add
that these plats received the best |
kind of summer tillage and turkey
winter wheat was planted on all of
them on the same day and harvested
the same day.
Putting it in another way we could |
say that beyond providing a soil res
ervoir to catch and hold all the
moisture we possibly receive, extra |
depth is a waste of money in hiring |
the extra horse power to plow
deeper. Moisture is of course our
factor on the dry lands. Our
average precipitation at Aberdeen |
(annuaD is 9.1S inches. 1t don't |
take much of soil reservoir to hold
that small amount of precipitation
In addition to the above, there are
no plows made which will plow be-
yond eighteen inches and they are
not plows, but sub-soilers. Subsoil-
Ing experiments nave Deen carried on
by many experiment stations and
quote in particular from some good
work done at Nephi, Utah, which is
a better dry farming country than
ours because they receive consider
ably more moisture than we do.
Bulletin No. 1853, Utah Station.
These averages are all yery close and
show rather conclusiyely that deep
fall plowing was not necessary to
store winter precipitation at the
Nephi substation The difference in
The amount of moisture after SUBJ
soiling, deep plowing, and shallow
blowing is not sufficient to warrant
he practice of subsoiling or deep
blowing for fallow.