30 



BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



guides for the practice of our farmers. In the first place he 

 tells us to plow deep. I agree with him there. He tells us 

 in the next place that we can not harrow too much. There 

 I am compelled to be at issue with him. Sir, what is the effect 

 of a harrow? Road-makers understand that. We have men 

 who devote themselves to the building of roads, and what do 

 they do, after they have plowed up a road, in order to settle 

 it in the most effective manner? Why, sir, they do not tram- 

 ple it, they do not roll it, they do not draw heavy sledges over 

 it, hut they harrotv it. That packs the earth down more solidly 

 than it can be done in any other possible way. While his 

 statement is correct for sandy land, the object of the culture 

 of which is to pack it rather than loosen it, his statement 

 would be exceedingly injurious — would "lead to bewilder and 

 dazzle to blind" — if it was applied to the stiflfer soils. I main- 

 tain, from the result of large experience and observation, that 

 there is no way of packing a stiff soil more completely than 

 by the use of a harrow upon it. 



What I would do, if I desired to lighten the soil, would be 

 to employ one of the forms of the plow which are best adapted 

 for the pulverization of the soil. There are a number of plows 

 which are adapted to convert a stiff soil into an onion bed 

 without any harrowing whatever; as, for instance, the plow 

 invented by Governor Holbrook — the Michigan plow — which 

 is now, I believe, sold in Boston. I speak of this with a great 

 deal of confidence, because, under the auspices of the State 

 Agricultural Society of New York, I have spent many weeks 

 in the most careful and thorough trial of plows, with especial 

 reference to the pulverization of the soil. I think we tried 

 over forty, embracing almost every kind of plow known to the 

 farming community, and it was found that on land plowed by 

 one of Governor Holbrook's plows, a blunt stick could be 

 thrust into the ground (which is the best test) to a much 

 greater depth than where the land had been broken up by any 

 other plow. This stood decidedly at the head of them all. 

 It was absolutely unnecessary, for any other purpose than 

 covering the seed, to harrow the ground at all after the use of 

 that plow. 



