2S2 [Senate 



and frequently to lift a side to disengage it from the accumulated 

 tufts. He had thoughts of gathering the turf and placing it in heaps, 

 fearing that in many places the wheat could not come up through it. 

 I dissuaded him from that, and the wheat came up through the thick- 

 est part of it, and it proved a protection against the action of the 

 frost, and yielded a crop of 25 bushels of good wheat to the acre, 

 while there was not another piece of winter wheat on summer fallow 

 in town that year, but was very much injured, and the greater part 

 of the fields wholly killed by the frost, except those on the porous 

 grave] soil of this town. All the fallow^s, except my brother's, had 

 been plowed earlier, and there had been rain that rotted the turf, and 

 their contents were mixed with the soil, and the fallows in excellent 

 condition, but the wheat on them was lost. The succeeding year a 

 neighbor adjoining, summer fallowed a piece of pasture land. The 

 first plowing was late, after a drouth had set in, and the sod or 

 turf could not be rotted. The result was a good crop of wheat, it 

 escaping winter killing, while all fallows well subdued, had the wheat 

 nearly ruined by freezing out, and many totally so. A similar circum- 

 stance occurred about the same time, in an adjoining town. A far- 

 mer summer fallowed a piece of land, and an occurrence took place 

 which prevented his finishing the fallow till late in the season for 

 summer fallowing. The consequence was, the turf of the late plowed 

 did not rot, but remained strewed over the ground, whilst the early 

 plowed w^as well subdued and in excellent condition. The whole 

 was sowed with fall wheat, and the late plowed w^as protected by the 

 undecomposed turf from the action of the frost, and produced a 

 good crop of wheat; and the part of the field that had been w^ell sub- 

 dued, w^as almost entirely killed. This lead this farmer and some of 

 his neighbors to reason correctly on the subject, viz: that the turf 

 scattered over the surface, protected the ground from the frequent 

 surface freezing and thawing, v/hich lifts out the roots of the wheat. 

 The farmer alluded to, and several of his neighbors, have since pur- 

 sued the course of summer fallowing so late in the season, as to pre- 

 vent the sod from rotting, w^hich course has always resulted in a 

 good crop of wdnter wheat; and I have known them sell from five to 

 six hundred bushels of wheat per year to one miller, w^hen those who 

 subdued their fallows by early plowing, lost their crop. In the mode 

 of late fallowing, it is not necessary to plow as deep as lor other crops, 

 as on pasture lands there is an accumulation of animal and vegetable 

 matter in and immediately under the sward, which should be mixed 

 by the plow and harrow with the surface soil, and not plowed deeply 

 under, but should remain on, and as near the surface as possible, to 

 take the place, as far as may be, of the native muck that formerly 

 covered the soil, and is not acted upon as severely by the expansive 

 power of the frost as when mixed in the soil by deep plowing; and being 

 on and near the surface, the fibrous roots of the wheat are supplied with 

 food for the plant, and vegetate strongly and vigorously, and strike 

 their roots deep in the soil below, as formerly was the case with wheat 

 sown on new land. The turf spread over the surface, not only pre- 

 vents the wheat from freezing out, but in the spring a rapid decom- 



