The Harvester World: Volume 6, number 2, February 1915

              A field of growing grain shades the ground reasona¬ bly well. Moisture is not very rapidly evaporated. The grain is cut off during the hottest and usually the driest part of the year. In walking across that stubble three or four days later one notices that the surface is cracked open in every direction—in some places three inches deep.
The dry, hot air has sapped the soil so rapidly that it contracts and bakes, leaving openings to the moisture deeper down. For the extreme instance, suppose this grain farm is in a semi-arid section where soil is only ten to twelve per cent water.
How can this moisture be saved for growing the next crop?
Put one of the boys on the disk harrow and have him follow closely behind the binder. Parodoxical as it may seem, he should disk the top of the soil to stop there the capillary action which he would produce at the bottom of the furrow by disking before plowing.
Stubble ground is quite compact. When disked, it is left rough and lumpy. Air is held between the lumps and prevents the moisture below from reaching the surface where it would evaporate and become lost. Thus, disking after the binder conserves moisture for the next crop, provided the ground is fall plowed or harrowed again before it dries and cracks open. Inci¬ dentally, it will often start weeds growing, which are killed when the field is plowed.
The salesman should not merely tell the farmer that the disk pulverizes the clods and makes a better seed bed, he should go farther and tell why it makes a better seed bed and how to do it on the particular kind of soil the farmer is tilling.
The utility of the disk harrow does not end with pre¬ paring good seed beds and conserving moisture.
Since alfalfa must be sown in a firm, compact seed bed, it is often the practice to follow an early-maturing
crop, which was sown in the spring, with alfalfa. Wheat, oat or barley stubble is prepared with a disk harrow and the alfalfa sown in late August. In much the same manner, cowpeas can be sown as a second crop.
There are other valuable uses to which a farmer can put this implement:
Roughing the surface soil to prevent drifting.
Killing quack grass by disking every ten days and raking and burning the grass.
Covering manure, winter spread on fall plowing.
Filling dead furrows and leveling ridges.
Re-seeding old meadows.
Keeping orchard free of grass and weeds.
Cutting up sods before plowing and after.
Making cotton ridges. ':
Cultivating cotton.
Cutting stalks with blades sharpened.
Preventing surface soil from washing.
Cultivating old alfalfa as it starts to grow in the spring.
Loosening snow on grazing land so cattle and sheep can reach the grass beneath.
If the dealer has an International disk harrow stored away, let him set it up and put it in his window where fai'iners can see it. A well-painted disk harrow like that will relieve the monotony of the average store window display and make the suggestion which may "discover" many disk harrow prospects.
The farmer's hand will soon be at the plow, and yon cannot make an effort too soon to direct him to the place of business where International disk harrows are sold.    The tillage season is on.
Help the farmer to increase his crops in 1915, and you help him buy disk harrows. It is easier than trying to "sell" him, and he is better satisfied, for you have not only heljjed him buy the harrow, but have told him how to use it and why.
The disk harrow pulverizes clods turned up by the plow.   It also has the packing effect of a land roller