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a hurry with the team, which is usually too light. It is seldom we stop 

 for baulks or to remove obstacles, but good farming will not allow 

 this. Our great object is to mellow the ground perfectly. To do this a 

 baulk must never be made, orif made inadvertently, go back and take 

 it up. We must plow deeply if we wish the roots to penetrate deeply, 

 and take narrow furrows if we intend to turn the entire surface, 

 This is the practice through all the best cultivated parts of Europe, 

 for a furrow from ten to fourteen inches wide is never seen there. 

 From six to seven inches is the width of the furrow slice, and it is as 

 uniform as a good tool, a powerful team, and the best plowman 

 can make it. The earth is not thrown over in masses to remain as 

 compact and adhering as the simple turning over without breaking up 

 the soil will effect, but the process of plowing pulverizes the soil and 

 opens it. Now, is not one such plowing worth more to the growing 

 plant than two or three, where from twelve to eighteen inch fur- 

 rows are cut at a slice ? In the last there is a mass so large as to 

 remain undisturbed, except simply so far as the turning over is con- 

 cerned, whilst the other being a smaller quantity will more na- 

 turally fall to pieces. Why do we summer fallow, but to give the 

 field the benefit of repeated plowings, thus loosening perfectly every 

 part of it, and permitting every particle of earth to be acted on by 

 the rains, the dews, and the influence of light and warmth? The 

 effect of all this stirring is observable upon the seed put into the 

 ground, for all have observed that the grain sown in a fallowed field 

 will germinate several days quicker than on one where only one 

 plowing has been practiced, and the growing plant will maintain its 

 superiority for a long subsequent time. It is to be hoped, therefore, 

 that our farmers will turn their attention to this important subject, 

 and give us the result of some well conducted experiments, which 

 will establish the difference in product between a well stirred or an 

 imperfectly plowed field. Of so much importance is this subject 

 regarded in Europe, that experiments are there in process of exe- 

 cution to ascertain how far spade husbandry as a farming operation 

 will compare with that, where the plow is used ; and as far as 

 we are informed, although the expense is much greater, a cor- 

 responding increase of crop has nevertheless uniformly been the 

 result. Indeed, the experimenters have been induced to carry out 

 their plans and continue the system. Their more numerous popu- 



