PLOWS AND PLOWING. 28T 



cheap, old style, inferior plows, which require an undue amount 

 of team to draw them, and which perform that part of the work 

 which they do in a very imperfect and unsatisfactory manner. 

 Consider if this loss is not enough to make the dijSerence between 

 a non-paying operation and a profitable crop. 



Inseparably connected with the subject of thorough disintegra- 

 tion of the soil, is the question of deep and shallow tillage ; and 

 when we consider the conflicting testimony we have upon this 

 point, the confirmed opinions of practical cultivators freely given 

 and forcibly expressed, both pro and con, we feel that an addi- 

 tional opinion h.ere expressed, however strongly that opinion may 

 be sustained, either by theory or practice, will add no weight to 

 the superabundance of testimony already accumulated. Still this 

 paper would be incomplete — a connecting link in the subject would 

 be left out — did we not devote a little space to its consideration. 



To illustrate the conflicting opinions existing upon this question I 

 will make two quotations. All who have read the report of the Amer- 

 ican Institute Farmers' Club of New York have been curiously inter- 

 ested in the discussion on this subject that has from time to time 

 taken up the time of these savans. A committee of seven gentle- 

 men interested in agriculture were chosen to visit Salem county. 

 New Jersey. Dr. Trimble, a member of the committee, says : "We 

 were shown some eighty corn fields in a day's ride. These fields 

 were all very much alike, and the committee were unanimous in 

 estimating the crop at an average of from seventy to eighty bush- 

 els to the acre. The pi'oper depth to plow had been the subject of 

 a long series of experiments with most of these men, and they had' 

 almost unanimously decided that it was best to plow less than five 

 inches in depth ; and as near as we could judge from the testi- 

 mony, four inches was about the average. We saw one large 

 field of excellent corn, that was plowed only three inches." 

 Therefore Dr. Trimble thinks deep plowing not advisable. In al- 

 luding to the subject again, he further says : "I have much testi- 

 mony to prove that five inches plowing or less has proved much 

 better than ten inches or more." There is no mistaking the fact 

 that the doctor is an advocate of shallow plowing. In opposition to 

 this I will make another quotation. Dr. Hexamer says that he 

 " plowed a field in the spring twice the depth that it was ever 

 plowed before. The result was that a portion of heavy clay was 

 turned on top, which could not give food to the young plant, and 

 the consequence was that field was unproductive that year. After 



