VOL. LXV
INDIANAPOLIS, OCT. 24, 1910.
NO. 43
FALL     PLOWING     FOK     SPRING
CROPS.
Editors  Indiana Farmer:
The advantages of fall plowing. M
claimed by its advocates, are: First,
the work can be done at a time of comparative leisure, and thus advance the
before spring. Such is not the case
in latitude 41. The sod turned down
late in the fall freezes soon, and remains frozen nearly the whole time,
and does not rut any more than the
Chicago dressed beef in the refrigerator  cars,   or   the   frozen   meat  shipped
plowed again (as it had to be) the
stubble and rubbish were turned up to
the surface and the land was not in
so good a condition as it would have
been had it not been plowed in tiie
fall. I am aware that soils differ in
their    composition    and    that    maybe
in the spring. I have found that sod
ground plowed with a jointer on the
plow and the furrows turned over flat,
Smother! the grass and weeds whieh
would inevitably come up between the
furrows on fall plowed land. It is
much less trouble to tend a hoed crop
Interior  View  National   Dairy  Show.     Chicago,     October     20-29,     1910.
spring work to be done at the farmer's
hurried season. It is true most farmers get their fall work done before the
ground freezes, and have time to do
considerable plowing before winter
sets in if desirable; but according to
my experience it requires so much
more work to properly fit a fall plowed
fleld for a spring erop that I had about
as lief, so far as the saving of labor is
concerned,   plow  it  in  the   spring.
Sod ground turned in the fall gets
so badly baked and consolidated that it
requires much more harrowing and
pulverizing, to get it in good order,
than the same ground when freshly
plowed. There is not very much saving of spring time if the work of pulverizing  is  well  done.
It is claimed by some that the sod
of fall plowed ground gets partly rotted
from  Australia  to  England.
It is claimed that fall plowing
throws the worms to the surface,
where they freeze to death. I do not
believe that freezing will kill worms.
My opinion is that a frozen worm, like
the serpeant in the fable, will, when
thawed, revive and be as active ana
destructive as ever. A worm that was
so nearly dead that it had not energy
enough to crawl into the ground when
turned out by the plow, would be sure
to die before spring anyhow. As for
plowing stubble land in the fall, 1
would not have it done on my farm if
somebody would do it for nothing, and
board himself. I have plowed stubble fields in the fall where the particles
of soil ran together into a mass and
consolidated, so that it looked like a
bed of mortar in the spring, and when
some soils would  have acted  differently-
It is claimed that dry land plowed in
the fall will absorb more of the water
from   the     melting     snow  and     early
| spring   rains,      consequently     the   crop
will  not suffer  so  much   from  drouth.
Fall plowed ground connot be fitted for
seeding until a great deal of the moisture has dried out, and the more water it has absorbed  the later it must be
i sown, and in the case of oats the earl-
] ier  it  can   be   sown,   the   plumper  the
| kernels and greater the yield.
Formerly, most of the farmers in
j this region (including myself) plowed
the sod ground they intended for
j spring crops in the fall after the aut-
I umn work was done, bnt ti * V any j
I do it now, because they
they can raise better crop., m  ' A ,1ng
1 ^X     4 i
on spring plowed ground. There may
be soils that are improved by fall plowing, but I have never found  them.
A   hillside     field,     or     land     rolling
enough   to   gully  and   wna?h   away   the,
surface,   cannot  be   plowed, in  the  fall
without serious  Injury.
I.  W.   Ingham.
VARIETIES FOR AN ORCILVItP.
Editors  Indiana Farmer:
I want to set 2,000 apple trees this
fall. What varieties would you advise? Answer through pnper, or hy
private mail. J. N. Hancoc'
Answer:      For  your  section     c
State  growers     recommend  the
Red Astrachan,  Early Harvest
Blush,       Transparent,       Mi
Wealthy,     Tompkin's     K'
Grimes, Jonathan, Nor'"