352 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



believe they are all that the land is capable of producing. 

 Perhaps such crops are all that shallow ploughing, without ma- 

 nuring, can give ; but can you tell what would be the result of 

 deepening the soil one, two, or six inches ? What if you opened 

 it to the influence of air and moisture two feet deep ? What if 

 all your clayey lands were under-drained, and all your dry lands 

 irrigated? What if dry land was made of all your swamps? 

 and what if a million loads of swamp muck were mixed with 

 the surface of your barren hills ? Who can tell what would be 

 the increase of your productions ? Can any one tell me what 

 percentage he could make upon his money, if he should invest 

 it in guano, phosphates, or other concentrated fertilizers, and 

 apply them judiciously to his soil ? It is full time that every 

 farmer in this county was able to answer that question. 



Wliat if I should tell you, that if all the plough land of the 

 United States was ploughed only one inch deeper, it would add 

 to the value of the land more than all the money at interest of 

 all the farmers in America, and give an annual increase to the 

 crops of more millions of bushels, ten times over, than have 

 ever been gained by planting one more acre. It is a text that 

 cannot be dwelt upon too long — plough one inch deeper. It is 

 a text that should be cast in letters of iron upon every plough — 

 plough one inch deeper. It should be graven in bold letters 

 around every "farm — plough one inch deeper. How can you 

 expect to produce good crops upon land that never has been 

 ploughed six inches deep ? Shallow ploughing is one of the 

 errors of a dark age, and one that must be looked in the face, 

 and acknowledged, and amended. I have never yet heard of a 

 single instance where deep ploughing has not proved beneficial. 

 In a few instances, an injudicious turning up of a cold subsoil 

 to a great depth has rendered the land almost barren for a year 

 or two ; but exposure of the coldest clay to the sun renders it 

 fertile. And wherever the subsoil is of a nature that is unfit to 

 incorporate at oiuce with the top soil, then it may Ije deepened 

 by the subsoil plough to great advantage. I have seen a great 

 many fields, where all the earth below three or four inches of 

 poor exhausted soil was an almost impenetrable hard-pan, and 

 where the crops scarcely paid the cost of the annual scratching, 

 called ploughing, that now have a rich mellow soil two feet 

 deep. I look upon shallow ploughing as one of the greatest 



