IGO [Senate 



To Alva Jefferson, Darien, New-York, for the best subsoil plow, 

 110.00. 



A number of other plows were submitted, among which were the 

 Wisconsin, the Scotch Wire mould-board, &c. &c., which have their 

 merits, and of which the committee would no doubt have been able 

 to make honorable mention, had they been submitted to the test re- 

 quired. 



All of which is respectfully submitted, 



G. GEDDES. 

 C. C. DENNIS. 

 M. L. BRAINARD, 

 September, 19th. 1845. 



ON SUBSOIL PLOUGHING, 



By S» McLean, Royalton, JYiagara Co., JV*. Y. 



Deep ploughing is a principle fully justified, both by the deductions 

 of sound philosophy and the results of experience. Notwithstanding 

 the universality of the axiom, there is a lamentable remissness in a 

 great majority of our agriculturists, particularly in the cultivation of 

 all our field crops. 



In the garden the farmer yields to the dictum of common sense 

 and experience. He ploughs, or spades, to a good depth, presuming, 

 and with good reason, that his extra labor will be rewarded with an 

 extra growth of vegetation.. But behold how sudden the transition! 

 He leaves his garden with a conscious experience of the utility 

 of deeply stirring the earth, and at the same time, aided by established 

 scientific principles, that the greater the depth of the soil, the more 

 ample will be his reward; but with all the lights of science, and 

 corroborated by his own experience, he goes from his garden to his 

 fallow, spell-bound with all his ancestral associations and delusions. 

 My fathers skimmed, and so must I ! Such is the practice, if not the 

 language, of nine-tenths of the agriculturists of our country, and 

 particularly of the farmers of western New-York. There is no sub- 

 ject of such vital importance to the farmer, and none in which his 

 interest is so intimately connected as a due preparation of the soil, 

 more particularly with reference to the growing of wheat. So long 

 as he continues the skimming process, just so long his hopes will be 



