174 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



It has a lifter that runs under the ground, some four inches 

 wide, and it is a good pull for three liorses. It lifts the 

 ground, and starts up the cobble-stones, which for fifty 

 years have just caught the point of the ordinary plough. I 

 can get a good deep soil by using a subsoil plough. 



Question. How deep do you run a subsoil plough? 



Mr. Cheever. One foot deep. In my method of opera- 

 tion, it does not cost any thing extra. I never subsoil 

 sward-land: that would require two teams, or unhitching 

 from one plough, and hitching on to the other. I subsoil 

 after corn, where I am going to sow oats in the sjiring. I 

 want to lighten the ground up. I can do that just as cheaply 

 with the subsoil plough as with an ordinary plough. Then I 

 put on an Everett & Small cultivator, with three teeth, that 

 runs as deep as a plough if you will let it down, and do the 

 work a great deal faster. I use that instead of any other 

 plough; and really it does not cost me any thing extra to 

 subsoil, when I can get about it, and have every thing ready. 



Question. If you were raising grass exclusively, do you 

 think it would pay to subsoil ? 



Mr. Cheever. It does not cost any thing extra as I do 

 it ; but it does pay to put a piece of land into condition, so 

 that you can plough it all eight inches deep. 



The Chairman. I believe in the doctrine that the lec- 

 turer has advanced with regard to stone walls ; but it would 

 impose an onerous tax on some of us. I have a farm of fifty 

 acres adjoining my friend Russell here ; and on it there are 

 miles of stone wall from six to eight feet high, and they 

 are from four to thirty-five feet wide [laughter]. I don't 

 wonder you laugh and doubt; but here is my friend, who 

 saw them a good while before I did. ' I did not build the 

 walls : you understand that. You could drive a four-horse 

 coach on the top of the wall : it is just as level as this floor. 

 It would be imposing too great a burden upon me to make 

 me take those walls off: I never should do it. I agree with 

 Mr. Cheever, that it would be desirable to have the thing 

 done ; but I do not know how we are going to do it. It is 

 astonishing to look at the walls on my place. I do not 

 believe that it was good husbandry to build them ; but I 

 have got them, and I do not know how to get rid of them. 

 My friend here will not take them off: he has enough of his 



