Word: moldboards
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...hottest farming argument since the tractor first challenged the horse was started last summer by Farmer Edward Faulkner's attack on the moldboard plow -Plowman's Folly (TIME, July 26). Last week returns on the great debate had begun to come in. They were very favorable to Faulkner...
...They suggested that, before it is abandoned, more study should be made of the new methods' effectiveness against weeds (they had watched only one field for weeds) and corn borers. But they concluded that farmers and machinery manufacturers should investigate new types of machines before investing heavily in moldboard plows, "which may be obsolete long before they are worn...
...rotary tiller which, avoiding the ruinous, soil-destroying effects of the moldboard plow (TIME, July 26), chops, harrows and disks the ground...
Bearded Soil. Farmer Faulkner is sure, on the basis of these results, that abandonment of the moldboard plow would result in immensely richer crops-without artificial fertilizer, lime, insecticides or even cultivating. His method, says he, would ultimately conquer insects (because bugs would find the crops less tasty) and weeds (because they would be killed off as they came up; weed seeds would not be buried and stored for future trouble, as they are by the plow). To the anticipated objection by most farmers that Faulkner's "bearded" soil would be harder to handle than clean plowed land, Faulkner...
Last week the top U.S. soil expert, Soil Conservation Director Hugh Hammond Bennett, saluted Faulkner. Bennett pointed out that some pioneering farmers (notably United Fruit Co. and some Cuban sugar-cane growers) have long used a system of cultivation like Faulkner's, called "stubble mulch." The moldboard plow, agreed Bennett, is doomed, except for some special crops and uses...