86 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



Mr. HiNMAN. How many years do you grow your alfalfa 

 before you plough again? 



Mr. Wing. Well, we plough it about every four or five 

 years. 



Mr. HoYT. How do you manage to plough it? I should 

 not think you could plough it, as the root is so strong and runs 

 down so deep. I should not think you could plough it without 

 cutting it. 



Mr. Wing. We do not find any difficulty in ploughing the 

 alfalfa. It is not often that our men say it is difficult to plough 

 it. The way we do is this : If you take an old plow and an old 

 worn-out harness, a poor team, and a hired man without any 

 conscience, I will admit it would be a pretty hard matter to 

 plough it, but if you take a new plough, or one just as good as 

 new, with a good, stifif harness, and a good team, and a man 

 with a conscience, and a file to follow the plough, so as to 

 sharpen it up every little while, you can plough it just as well 

 as you can anything. If the roots are tough and big it is 

 sometimes necessary to sharpen the share every twenty minutes. 



Mr. HoYT. The hired men in Connecticut, I am afraid, 

 wouldn't stand that. They would leave us in no time. 



Mr. Wing. You might have to do more of that here than 

 we do. Our soil does not have so much stone in it as yours. 

 Here your ploughshare would not stay sharp very long. It 

 is not necessary to do that with us so much. Furthermore, 

 our fields are mostly i6o rods long, and we go down the field 

 and then come back to the upper end before the plough comes 

 out of the ground, and the man files the share, or sharpens it up, 

 before we start out again. 



Mr. HoYT. Have you had any experience in raising soy 

 beans ? 



Mr, Wing. Yes. They do well in the south of Ohio, but 

 I do not think they will do well so far north as this. In some 

 years they may be useful to you, but the further north you get, 

 of course, the less liability there is of getting a good crop. 



