Vol. IX. No. 209. 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS, 



135 



un land rather below than above 'good condition', having 

 yielded acrojjof Guinea corn in ltl07-b, at the rate of l,0.^0 lb. 

 per acre, while the cotton crop in the present season ran from 

 300 to 3-50 B). of ?eed-cotton. Xo manure has been applied 

 to this land, which came into the jjossession of the farm only 

 two years ago. It will be interesting to .see if future years' 

 figures confirm these residts. 



(3) Generall}-, there seems tfi be reason for concluding 

 that any arrangement of spacing and thinning which admits 

 of more than 11,000 or 12,000 plants per acre has a prejudic- 

 ial effect on the yield. 



In this connexioi), it is interesting to note that the 

 distance of 2 feet apart in the rows has been founil to 

 be best in similar experiments conducted in St. Kitts. 

 An account of these will be found in the Report 

 on the Botanic Station, Econniaic Experiments am/ 

 Aijricidtvral Education, St. Kitts-Neris, 1908-9. 



THE USE OF THE PLOUGH. 



There is nothing which adds so much to draught as the 

 weight which the holder puts on to the handles. A man may 

 hold a plough firmly, and yet add but little to the draught, 

 and a well-set plough requires this rather than pressure. 

 A plough that a skilled pliiughman cannot .set to run easily 

 on fair land should be broken u]i, as it is a very expensive 

 implement to keep. But if one looks over a plough that is 

 difficult to hold, it is likely that there is one or other of 

 the nuts that regulates some adjustment that has never 

 been moved since it came from the works 



Where the wheels are depended upon to regulate the 

 depth of the ploughing, it is very important that they, and 

 the standards and axle supporting them, an- kept plunib true. 

 If any part is bent it should be put right by the blacksmith, 

 and any temporary derangement be setrighf by packing with 

 a wedge to correct it. To set off. the coulter also should be 

 arranged to assist the running. Where there is a tendency 

 for the plough to run away from its work, it should be set 

 a triHe wide to pull it back: but if it runs in, then it should 

 be set narrower. The coulter can greatly aid when the 

 plough runs away from its work through the land side of the 

 point becoming rounded, and having a tendency to follow the 

 inclination of the curve so formed. The coulter is ordinarily 

 best set fairly well forward, but on stony grounds it is desir- 

 able to set it so that a stone does not pitch between it and 

 the share. By setting a coulter point fairly forward, through its 

 inclination it runs freely into the softer ground below, so that 

 the cut is made up the edge, and the hard surface yields 

 more easily in this way than when it is attacked more verti- 

 cally. Sharp knives make easy work, blunt knives hard work: 

 therefore the coulter, which is a knife blade, should be kept 

 sharp. Sometimes one sees them little more than a round bar, 

 with 3 or 4 inches flattened and thick to do the cutting — 

 which is not economical. The nice adjustment of the d'ulter 

 is very essential to the easy running of the plough. 



The nicer setting of the plough i.-^ effected from the h( ad 

 or forepart of the beam, where there are two moveable parts 

 — one with a vertical movement, and the other with a lateral. 

 That with the lateral is known as the head, or T-head, and 

 that with the vertical as the hake, or sliding head. In the 

 steering of the plough, it has to be remembered that it is 

 mainly done by balancing, i.sing the bottom of the body as 

 a pivot. If one wants to make it run more shallow, one 

 weighs on the handles, and up comes the head. If one 

 wants it to run to the right, one pushes the handles to the 

 left, and it pivots round, an<l so on. The sliding head 



is made with a series of notches, which allow the draught 

 chain to be adjusted as desired. When the ground is hard 

 there is a tendency for the share to run upwards, and though 

 the holder can resist to some extent by pressing the head 

 down and holding against the tendency, he can be greatly 

 relieved by allowing the horses to help him. This he does 

 by altering the height of the draught point. Remembering 

 that there is a pivot on which the plough balances, it is obvious 

 that the higher the point of .attachment, the more will the 

 fore end of the plough be dipped, while the lower, the more 

 will it be lifted out. The sliding head, therefore, affords 

 easy correction to other faults which tend against a furrow of 

 even depth. The draught chain, however, can be made to 

 assist, for if short, the horses will lift the head, but if long, 

 they will pull it down. Ordinarily, a short chain suffices, but 

 on haril ground, a longer chain gives great relief to the 

 holder, and the plough runs steadier. 



The T-head is a continuation of the beam, and is quadrant- 

 shaped, with pinholes at near intervals: it is used to assist in 

 controlling lateral swerving of the plough. The pivot action has 

 again to be regarded, and when it is desired to pull the big wheel 

 away from the unploughed ground, the sliding head is pushed 

 to the left, and if it is required to bite the unploughed land, 

 it is pushed to the right, being held in place by means of 

 a pin thiust through holes corresponding in the T-head and 

 the sliding head. The alteration of the position of the slid- 

 ing head to the rigid beam is necessary also, because the line 

 of d'-aught is widely different when horses draw in single line, 

 when two are abreast, or when three are abreast, as each one 

 necessitates the draught being more or less on one side or the 

 other of the line of the beam: accordingly as the centre of the 

 maiii whipple-tree is to the line of the beam so must the 

 sliding head be fixed, and remembering the plough pivots, it 

 has to be set wider, in opposition to the way it is desired to 

 turn the head of the plough. 



The setting of the breast or mould-board also influences 

 the run of the plough, as the wider it is opened — that is, 

 pushed out by the breast stay — the more will it turn the share 

 point on to the work. With all these means of adjusting, it 

 looks as though the .setting of a plough ought to be a very 

 simple matter, but the -struggling efforts of many ploughmen 

 give contradiction to this. In fact, to get all these points in 

 harmony takes a considerable period to learn; moreover, they 

 are subject to alteration every time different work is done, 

 and beyond all this is the knowledge which directs the best 

 type of work to be done for the purjjose ahead. 



When the plough is properly set, and, of course, still 

 more so, when ill set, there is much to do to make it run so 

 as to give less strain to the horse and man. A furrow set 

 deeper on the wing side of the share is always heavier in 

 draught than one set with a level sole or slightly deeper on 

 the little wheel, because the .share cuts clean across when it 

 is fiat: but when the wing is lower than the preceding furrow, 

 the new furrow has to be torn out. On heavy land, especially, 

 the line of fracture may continue downwards for a considerable 

 distance, and instead of a 9 inch furrow, it may break out 13 

 or 14 inches, bringing lip very objectionable subsoil. This 

 constitutes coarse ploughing. Coarse ploughing is not depend- 

 ent upon the depth and width of the furrow, but on this 

 breaking out of the subsoil. 



When ooe says the plough is balanced with the centre as 

 a pivot, this must not be taken to mean that there is merely 

 one spot which acts as a pivot; it is spread over quite a large 

 portion of the body and breast, as occasion demands, and 

 experience alone teaches where to apply the adjustments in 

 connexion with it from time to time. (The Tropical Agricult- 

 urist, February 1910.) 



