UIHistories Project: A History of the University of Illinois by Kalev Leetaru
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Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871 [PAGE 348]

Caption: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871
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340 ground. I don't want the piece of ground injured in its mechanical texture by the growth of weeds. Suppose I cultivate it, I don't think that that is exactly the fair thing either. Suppose I put it in timothy and clover There is a plant growing there and running its roots out and injuring the plat of ground. The idea occurred to me to make it into beds. I would back furrow, and make a dead furrow between them; just take the soil that plants will grow readily in, right out and throw out the beds. Down to the bottom of an ordinary furrow plants do not start so readily. Mr. Miles—I have thought of that plan, but it seems to me objectionable. We plow our plats so as to leave the lines between one a dead furrow, and the other a ridge, each series of plats with a dead furrow on one side and ridge on the other. When you come to dig down and remove the soil below, if you get an unfair proportion of that upon either side, you are going to influence the result in that way. Then again, the cultivation of this piece excavated will have some influence on your crops, for if you examine carefully you will find the roots running into the sub-strata. It seems to me the only way to obviate this difficulty is to cultivate through and give the same amount of cultivation to each band as far as possible. Then you treat them all alike. Now, when the weeds spring up, with some crops the weeds will get a considerable start before the crop is started. We could go through and pull those up by hand, although they might be numerous. Then, at other times, we have practiced going through with a hoe and just cutting the weeds off, disturbing below the surface as little as possible. These are all difficult things to manage, and require a great deal of thought. Mr. Hamilton—Let me understand what you mean by weeds. A plant out of place % Mr. Miles—Any plant out of place is a weed. Mr. Hamilton—We have what is called grass. Mr. Miles—Grass we call a weed. I don't care what it is, whether clover or corn. The Chairman—A stool of wheat in a corn field is a weed. Mr. Miles—Yes, sir, i Mr. Parker—These dead furrows in our section would not do at all, on account of the drainage. What I was always accustomed to do in Michigan, in raising a bed for onions or beets, or anything of that kind in the garden, I used to raise it from two to four or six inches above the surface, by ditches around it. Do that in Kansas and you will lose your crop.