AGRICULTURE IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 17 



but only to the usual depth. The soil was rather stiff, but 

 these repeated ploughings made it light as an ash heap ; the 

 soil was completely pulverized. The wheat with which it was 



sown looked finely in the late autumn, but was all winter- 

 killed, and in the spring oats were sown instead. There was a 

 very heavy crop of oats, and for not less than six years after 

 this repeated ploughing, that acre could be easily traced by the 

 richer feed when it was in pasture, and heavier crop when it 

 was tilled. The division was traceable within a foot of the line 

 of frequent ploughing. I have no doubt if that acre had been 

 subsoiled in the first or some subsequent ploughing, the crops 

 for six years would have been one-third greater than those of 

 the adjacent land cultivated in the usual way. This finely pul- 

 verized soil absorbed from the air fertilizing properties, carbon 

 and ammonia, especially as deposited in the dew which was 

 turned in by the plough, and each particle of soil being exposed, 

 became enriched thereby, while in ordinary culture but very 

 little of the soil comes in contact with the air, and hence is not 

 in a condition to promote vegetation. I need not say in Xew 

 England that hill-side land should never be ploughed up and 

 down hill. This kind of bad tillage was a gift possessed uni- 

 versally by the farmers in western Pennsylvania. I seldom saw 

 a field ploughed in any other manner. Of course both the soil 

 and the hill were fast descending into the valleys. 



I have said so much of the culture of the soul and soil, that 

 I have left myself but brief space to speak of stock and fruit. 

 Good stock is the cheapest to raise, and worth the most when 

 it is raised. The old fashioned, great-boned, coarse-haired, 

 long-legged, lank-bodied cattle, greedy as famine and tough as 

 iron-wood, which once did any thing but grace the hills and 

 stalls of New England, have almost disappeared. They could 

 eat and run against the world. Voracious as anacondas, and 

 as lean as death, they kept the farm poor. There is, it is true, 

 much sham in the fancy stock of the present time, but vast 

 improvement has been made. In cows and oxen the advance 

 has been very great. It is pleasantcr, if not cheaper, to keep a 

 good cow than a poor one, and her value, as a producer, is 

 three-fold that of a poor one. I am sorry there is not on the 

 ground a good specimen of an old fashioned swine, I will not 

 say porker, because, unlike the celebrated animal whose loins 



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