Second Thousand Answered Questions In California Agriculture (1916) (Hardcover)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PART III. GRAINS AND FORAGE CROPS Plowing for Summer Fallow. I have 500 acres to summer fallow, and the land has not been farmed for five years. How deep shall I plow? Some of the land mentioned is a sandy loam and some is adobe and red land. As the land has been idle so long and natural processes of soil-opening in operation, it is not essential to plow as deep as though you had plowpan to break up. You need only plow deep enough to lay a good foundation for this summer's working for moisture conservation, harrowing or disking to kill weeds and breaking up clods. Six inches deep, measured on the landside, would be a good depth. In summer fallowing for moisture, it is better to plow less deep and summer-work well than to plow deep and let her go after that. Rotation of Crops. / have land that has been sown in oats for about six years. Can you please give me a good rotation of crops for this land? One cannot wisely prescribe a rotation simply by schedule. One has to know the land, the markets, and the amount of capital and knowledge available. The simplest and easiest rotation to make, if you have the money to stock up, would be to go to pasturage. Alternation of pasturage and cereals, half the land to each each year, is a good way to improve the land. If you are not ready to farm with stock, the next best crop after grain would be potatoes, beets, or other roots by deep tillage, if you can sell the crop to advantage. Or you could improve the land by alfalfa for hay (if you cannot feed it), or beans, if your land is fit for it. There is no great advantage in changing one grain for another. Unless you are ready for a radical change to roots or legumes you had better use fertilizers and grow more oats if they are profitable. Harrowing Young Grain. Does harr...