Dry-farming: its principles and practice by Macdonald William

Author:Macdonald, William
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Dry farming
Publisher: New York, The century co.
Published: 1909-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

THE CAMPBELL SYSTEM

soil and endeavoring to bring it to the highest degree of perfection."

Mr. A. M. Ten Eyck, Professor of Agronomy at the Kansas State Agricultural College, puts the whole matter concisely as follows:—

"The principle of loosening the surface of the soil and keeping a mulch of mellow soil in order to prevent the evaporation of the moisture is well recognized by farmers generally, and is practised to a greater or less extent in the cultivation of all kinds of crops. In the Campbell system of culture the purpose is to keep a mellow soil-mulch on the surface of the land all the time, not only during the growing of the crop, but in the intervals between harvest and seeding time. Thus, after the crop is planted, the land is kept cultivated with the harrow or weeder in order to break the surface crust and conserve the soil moisture, and, following out 159

DRY-FARMING

the same principle, the harrowing or work with the weeder is continued after the grain or corn (maize) is up, and during the growing period frequent cultivation is practised. After the crop is harvested the cultivation is not discontinued, but the surface of the ground is loosened as soon as possible after the crop is removed by the use of the disc harrow, and thus the soil is kept continually in a condition not only to prevent the loss of the water already stored in the soil, but this same condition and mellow surface favors the absorption of rain and largely prevents the loss of water by surface drainage."

Summer culture is, therefore, different from summer fallowing, for the sole aim of the first is to keep the land constantly stirred to conserve the rainfall, whereas the object of the latter is simply to rest the ground by letting it lie idle. Further-160

THE CAMPBELL SYSTEM

more, the old idea of allowing the weeds to grow in order to be turned under for green manure, as commonly practised by the summer-fallow system, is condemned by Campbell, who lays special stress on clean and continuous tillage for the conservation of moisture. His experiments clearly show the marked difference in yield between ground that has been summer tilled and land which has had its soil moisture sapped to such a degree by growing weeds that it breaks up on plowing into a lumpy condition, and cannot be made into a moist, mellow, seedbed. Mr. Campbell lays emphasis on the need of local experience. He says : "The mistake of the pioneer settlers was that they tried to farm in the West as they had done in the East, and the result was disastrous failure." But he also insists on the value of learning. "The ideal farmer is first of all a student, then an 161

DRY-FARMING

investigator, and, finally, a specialist; ever alert for new things and new ideas, open-minded and free from conceit; a man familiar with what is going on around him, and yet intensely devoted to his own work."

That the Campbell method

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.