AGRIMOTOR NOTES.
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The Farm Tractor and Improved Cultivation of the Land.
pROPER CULTIVATION of the land in the past has been controlled by two distinct limitations, viz., (1) the inability of the person to get his ploughing and cultivating operations completed before
• the wet weather Bets in for autumn and his inability to get through spring cultivation in time to farm all the crops sown at the proper period of the year, and (2) insufficient power to plough and cultivate the soil thoroughly.
The adverse result of these limitations cannot be estimated, as there is no basis of figures to work upon. But, by oomparing a piece of and that has, by some means, been thoroughly well and deeply tilled, with a field subjected regularly to Ordinary tillage, one is able to form a rough idea, at least, of the possibilities of deeper and better cultivation.
The object of cultivation is to make the soil conditions as favourable as possible for the plant at all stages of its growth. If the soil has been altered by weather or other causes, it must be brought back to its proper condition by suitable means. Plants require water, air, suitable temperature, food. absence • of injurious substances, and support for the roots. All these factors are influenced by cultivation, and the success of the crop depends upon how nearly they can be kept to the most favourable conditions.
Not very often are the most favourable conditions present, consequently crops languish, or they are of mediocre quality only. These conditions have not been absent, -in the past, altogether because of the lethargy of the farmer, as some people might be tempted to suppose, but because of the sheer impossibility of doing the cultivating work—doing it well—in the time the farmer frequently has at his disposal.
i As an example, we will take an ordinary season commencing with June. What tillage operations are not completed by the end of the first week in June are generally not done until after harvest. Haymaking commences in June and lasts, under the old method of horses, men, and wagons, until pretty well
• the end of July in a good average season. Then the corn harvest commences and this lasts in a very good season until the end of August or beginning of September. If there has been any time to spare, it was taken up with work among the roots and the stock. • This gives the farmer one month in which to get his ploughing done ready for sowing in October, which is the ideal month for the sowing of all autumn crops. As we have seen, the farmer in a good season has 30 days in which to do his ploughing, and one team of horses will plough from three-quarters to one acre per day, so that, at the most, he can only plough 30 acres in the time -at his disposal, with one team. This, be it remembered, is the ordinary and usual practice and supposes no hindrances. But there may be many hindrances. In a wet summer the harvest is much delayed and may not be finished until well after the middle of September—and perhaps the end of this month. _ The ploughing month of September may be a wet month, when no ploughing can be done. Then what happens '1 If the weather permits, ploughing is done during October—a month late—and the sowing is done in November--still a month late—and this and December are the worst months of all for sowing, and the season is too near winter to allow of the plants becoming established before the wet and cold weather arrives.
There you get the cause of bad tillage. The farmei cannot work against Wile : he cannot 'control the seasons. But the motor tractor can and does place him in a position to complete the harvest earlier, to do his ploughing, cultivating, and sowing quickly and to take full advantage of every opportunity and of every fine-weather spell. However, before going on to show how the tractor is going to obviate this difficulty in the future, there is a further aspect of the subject to be taken into consideration. It is limitation number two, mentioned at the beginning of this article, namely, that the farmer in the past has not had sufficient power to conduct his tillages thoroughly.
The time handicap is responsible for some of the poor work done in general tillage and the shallow ploughing that one notices so much. It is easy to understand that, in a delayed season —and we get many of them—the farmer, in his haste to get over the work, has his plough and implements set as lightly—or shallowly, if you like—as possible, so as to render the work more easy for the horses, that they may cover the ground more rapidly. That is one cause of shallow soils and poor cultivation and light crops. But there is also this matter of power. Even in a fair season, with the usual amount of time available, one can only subject a portion of the arable land to anything like decent cultivating. Because, with horses, the work is very slow and very heavy. On the best farms only a comparatively few acres can be so treated each year. And this, with the inter\ ening bad seasons, accounts for the great loss to the agricultural industry consequent upon the facteof farmers not being able to do more than half-till one half of the land. .
The shallow depth to which the soil had customarily been ploughed was.a striking fact in the Lincoln trials. And, apart from the rock which abounds there under the soil, in some of the fields it was quite plain to see that with horse power it had not been possible to get down very much'ifeeper.
It must not be. thought for a moment that shallow work is the farmer's wish. It is the result of force of circtuaistance, as we have seen. Experienced farmers have ever realized the value of deep and seasonal ploughing, their difficultybeing how to get it done. The advantages or subsoiling were always
recognized but here again the question of cost made the operation almost prohibitive o nything but a small scale. Deep cultivation in the past, though most necessary, and essential in the case of highclass farming, leas ,been almost, out of the question because of the great increase in farm working costs which it involves. ,
Many farmers, aiming at making their land more productivo,. realize to the, full _what it will mean to them to be in possession of the _power to have better tillage, which is as important a factor in crop. raising as the manure itself. Now that it has been fully demonstrated that the tractor can fulfil these requirements—even beyond many anticipations—it must be expected that, for this purpose alone, there,will be a heavy demand for tractors from all the better-class farmers.