The Professor

On a windswept stubble field on the outskirts of Regina, nine tractors were lined up, Indian file. Around one tractor and the "one-way cultivator" hitched to it, a crowd of 300 farmers, implement makers and Regina businessmen kept their eyes on the professor, a tall, husky man, clad in much-washed cotton trousers and shirt, a sweat-stained felt hat.

Dr. Evan Hardy of the University of Saskatchewan did not look like a professor; nor did he look like a revolutionist. Yet as much as any one man can, dealing with a single branch of the farm economy, Dr. Hardy has wrought a revolution in prairie agriculture. It began 15 years ago when he served as a judge in plowing matches. Then & there he decided that plowing matches were good fun, but a waste of farmers' time. What difference did it make how fast and straight a furrow could be plowed? The important thing was the productivity of the furrow and the cost of cutting it. Years of study taught him how to step up productivity, cut down cost. This month, on a backbreaking schedule, he and six helpers set out to give 150 field demonstrations, pass on their knowledge to farmers.

Plow Down, Costs Up. As owners hopped aboard their machines and clanked off down the field last week, Evan Hardy strode after them, noting pulling power and gas consumption, making sure they had their machines adjusted properly. He showed that a rubber-tired machine was more economical, needed only four h.p. hours per acre against five for its steel-wheeled brother. He discussed the alignment of wheels so that they do not compete with each other, the best speed to reduce slippage of discs, the most economical depth of tillage. Said he: "It's the top four inches you're interested in. . . . It may give you a lot of emotional satisfaction to put the nose of a plow 'way down and rip it up, but it doesn't grow any better crops." Deep plowing is more expensive. He has found that costs increase 20% when tillage depth increases from three to four inches.

Like Edward H. Faulkner (Plowman's Folly, TIME," July 26, 1943), Dr. Hardy has found that farmers who use the old moldboard plow spend 33%-50% more than those using the shallow-plowing one-way disc. With the disc a farmer can cover double the acreage plowed in the same time. Nearly all of the farmers are now using discs. To avoid pulverizing the soil and laying the prairies open to soil drifting, they should not be pulled faster than 5 1/2 miles an hour.

The men who listened to Evan Hardy knew that the prairies will have droughts again. But by practicing what he preached, they hoped they could avoid making their lands into dust bowls.

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