lost by leaching and by fermentation.', sections of the state, peat can be had If hauled out in the fall, after it has laid in the barnyard all summer, you do not haul out one-half of the value. Mr. John Imrie-We have found shredded corn fodder is about the best absorbent we can use in the gutters. It takes it up readily and it is easily spread. very cheaply and there isn't a better absorbent, it can be used with great success, it soaks up the liquid like a sponge and it is a good manure in itself, because it contains a larger percentage of nitrogen than common barnyard manure. A Member-A man can spoil his farm by digging holes in it to get the peat. Mr. Nordman-I believe that that question of cutting peat and using it to a greater extent than we do ought Mr. Nordman-Oh, yes, you do not to be a matter of importance. In many want to dig the holes in your meadow. TILLAGE. L. E. Scott, Stanley, Wis. The student of nature marvels at the close analogy between the animal and the plant, finding, as he does, that they subsist upon the same ele ments and that the same laws of heredity, development and growth govern both. the His first error comes with thought that the animal is nourished by its food partaken in a solid form, while the plant can only receive its nourishment in form of a liquid. A little farther in his research, he finds that the animal is nourished only after its food, being masticated, acted upon by the saliva, gastric and other juices and reduced to a fluid called chyle, is absorbed in this liquid form by the membranes of the intestines into the circulation of the body So with the plant. Its food may be given in a solid form, as with the animal, but it must be acted upon by bacteria and ferments and reduced to a liquid before it can be used by the plant. In this form it is absorbed by the hair-like surface of the tiny root lets and carries with it materials with which to build the cells of the plant. ed and the soil should be regarded as the stomach of the plant. In this stomach the most of our plant food is digested. Some of it is pre-digested in the compost heap or in our fertilizer factories, the same as our breakfast foods are predigested at Battle Creek. Sometimes we apply plant food upon the surface or topdress. Somethimes, in case of a bad stomach, we nourish the animal through the skin, but it always seemed to me that a man is indeed very miserable who has to take his nourishment externally. Many of our ills are caused by indigestion. This is true also of the plant. If the stomach is sour, if it is cold, if it contains too much moisture, or if it contains too little and becomes too dry and feverish, then the diges tion is impaired and the crop suffers. As exercise on the part of the ani mal is necessary for good digestion, so tillage is necessary to a hasty and thorough preparation of food for the plant. Tillage fines the soil, giving it larger capacity for the storage of film In short, plant food must be digest- moisture, giving the rootlets of the plant a larger feeding surface. Till age furnishes air, which is just as necessary to the soil life as to animal life. Tillage stimulates bacterial action, thus hastening the development from the nitrogen furnished by the vegetable matter that we are incorporating in the soil. the ground, and it should be harrowed finely and level before the grain is sown. Rolling. If rolling is done when the soil is moist, it will increase the capillarity; and the land will dry out more quick Tillage to some extent governs tem-ly, unless the roller is followed with a perature. Tillage conserves a due amount of moisture to carry the crop through an ordinary drouth. If you take a lump of sugar and place the lower edge in colored water, the water will come at once to the surface. If you place a little pulverized sugar upon another lump, the water will come up to it but not through it. If you cover another lump of sugar with granulated sugar, the water will come through it almost as readily as it does through the lump, showing that to conserve moisture we must have our dust mulch fine rather than coarse and cloddy. The Seed Bed for Small Grain. An ideal seed bed is one with substrata of soil sufficiently compact to enable soil moisture to come up by capillary attraction, as it does through the lump of sugar, to moisten the seed, which should be deposited at the bottom of a finely prepared dust mulch. Ground well plowed in the fall and worked early in the spring with harrow and spring tooth, furnishes such a condition. It is not always necessary to disk fall plowing, and I am not in favor of very deep disking. There is a great deal of corn stubble and potato ground this spring that is not plowed. If clean, it will undoubtedly be better to disk this rather than to spring plow. The disk should lap half, so as not to ridge harrow. There are conditions where the ground is hard and dry, as it sometimes is after grain comes up, when the roller will mellow the surface and pulverize the small clods that lie upon it, thus forming a dust mulch, which will retard evaporation. Killing Weeds. Again the plant is like the animal, in that its life in its early and tender age can be more easily extinguished than after it is old and strong and stubborn. The time to kill a weed is when it first shows its tip above the ground. A fine and shallow cultivation will kill them at that stage when it would require a coarser cultivation later on. The Use of the Weeder. It has been my practice for some time to throw a little ridge over potatoes in planting, to harrow level a few days later, when the weeds start. I am convinced that a light ridge over corn is of equal advantage, especially upon heavy soil. Shovels should be placed behind the wheels of the planter, the corn planted shallow and a light ridge thrown over it. This will enable the weeder to do much more effective work, lessen the expense of clearing the field and result in a better growth and an earlier maturity of the crop. A deal of prejudice against the weeder comes from an attempt to use it in poorly drained land that has become set after a heavy rain. Such land should be cultivated first and Noble's Fawn Prince, 95705. Junior Champion. Wi sconsin State Fair, International Dairy Show and National Dairy Show, 1911. Owned by Mrs. Adda F. Howie, Elm Grove, Wis. when friable finished with a weeder, | you will retard its growth every time. either crosswise or lengthwise of the rows. I had one of the first weeders that was made (the old "Breeds") and for some years I did not use it, but the modern weeders are an improvement if used as indicated. I would not be without one. Inter Tillage. The inter-cultivation of all plants should be shallow, fine, frequent, continuous, and, if possible, level. It is well known that up to a limit, rarely reached in a northern latitude, that the wai mer the soil the more rapidly nitrates will develop and the faster crops will grow. The most effective way to warm soil is to drain it of surplus moisture, which would naturally cool the soil if allowed to evaporate. But soil may be also warmed by proper tillage. With shallow tillage, the roots grow nearer the surface, where the higher temperatures are, and where bacterial action is most active. Experiments show that with tillage one and one-half inches deep, soil is warmer down to a depth of three feet than with tillage three inches deep. Also that where the surface is left smooth the soil is warmer than where the cultivation is coarse and furrows and ridges have been left. I cannot call to mind a crop but will do better with shallow tillage if that tillage is thorough. We are sometimes asked if we would not cultivate corn deeply the first time through. When corn is big enough to cultivate, a casual examination will show you that the roots in mellow soil are three times the length of the plant above the ground. glance at the shank of the cultivator tooth running deeply, and you will see the fine and tender roots clinging to it. Prune the roots of a plant and A Many orchards have been permanently injured by deep plowing or even disking. The same principle holds good with all trees, shrubs and plants. Kinds of Tools. The ideal cultivation of all is an old-fashioned, down-east-Yankee and a hoe, with handle held upright so the blade will be flat, with a bright blade and a sharp edge he will pare the surface, which falls loosely behind the blade in a fine and smooth dust mulch. The finest gardens I have ever seen are those in which no horse's foot ever enters, except to plow and harrow the land at its first fitting. But the Yankee and his hoe are too slow to suit the modern idea, or to comply with the requirements of these strenuous times where labor ers are few. We must have cultivators and I believe a farmer makes no mistakes who has a variety of tillage tools to suit different conditions and different seasons. hoe Anything that works like a suits me best, where soil conditions will permit of it. The next best is the spike-tooth, or the spring-tooth, if teeth are not too wide. The old bull-tongue tooth has about had its day. If it is necessary in weedy and wet soil to cultivate coarsely, this should be followed a few hours after with a fine tooth, to level and smooth and insure a full killing of the weeds. Finally I say, Till the soil! for "He that tilleth the soil shall be satisfied with bread." DISCUSSION. Mr. John Imrie-I heard a good many times this winter of the practice of taking out a little dirt and planting the corn right in the dirt. |