THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



THE IMPLEMENTS OF THE FARM-TO IMPROVE OR INVENT. 



With reference to the implements succeeding the 

 plough, which still further pulverize the soil, and 

 which finish its surface, as the clod-crusher, the Nor- 

 wegian harrow, and all the varieties of this important 

 class, it is difficult to estimate in what direction further 

 improvement must bo made in their arrangement or 

 construction so as to produce better work. What 

 thej' have to do is done with admirable precision, so 

 that although minor improvements may be made, no 

 great revolution in their style of working can be rea- 

 sonably expected. The remedy may be found yet 

 further on. We are quite aware how ungracious is 

 the task of "finding fault;" and having apparently 

 done so much in this way already, if we still con- 

 tinue doing so, we shall doubtless be set down as 

 utterly and in all things heterodox, and as con- 

 tinually indulging in dreams Utopian. But at 

 tlie commencement of our articles, the task we 

 set ourselves was one which had for its main object 

 the endeavour to point out the probable direction in 

 which agricultural mechanism was likely to progress ; 

 and to trace the impulses, if any, which tended to 

 drive men's thoughts out of the long-maintained track 

 of wont and usage. In following out this task, we 

 have not been desirous so much to set before our 

 readers our own notions on the subject as those of 

 others. We have, in truth, been mainly attempting 

 to become the exponent of what " men have been and 

 are now thinking" on the all-engrossing subject of 

 agricultural progress, and our remarks therefore must 

 be considered in this light, rather than as the result 

 of personal convictions. 



To come, then, to our rather startling conjecture — 

 namely, that this class of implements now under con- 

 sideration may be, at some period more or less remote, 

 rendered unnecessary. It may seem strange to some 

 to doubt that clods and hardened nodules of soil are 

 natural concomitants of the cultivated soil. Some do 

 doubt this nevertheless, holding that these defects in 

 cultivated soil are simply caused by defects in the sys- 

 tem by which it is cultivated ; so that if the soil was pro- 

 perly pi epared, these defects would have no existence. 

 Mr. Stephens, in his work explanatory of the " Yester 

 Deep Land Culture," has the following : — "Many of 

 the most costly implements employed on farms, such 

 as Norwegian harrows, Crosskill's clod-crushers, grub- 

 bers, rollers, are only used for pulverizing the soil. 

 The occupation of such implements is gone in the 

 Yester deep land culture. The subsoil trench-plough- 

 ing, by the double operation, effectually and perma- 

 'nently pulverizes not only the soil, but the subsoil, 

 to the depth of 19 or 20 inches; and the Tweed- 

 dale plough itself afterwards maintains the soil in 

 a state of pulverization to the depth of 13 inches, 

 having still a stirred subsoil of 4 or 5 inches be- 

 neath a really unusually deep furrow. Experience 

 has fully established that from the pulverized 

 state of tlie soil in spring, no other implements are 

 wanting for the cultivation of the soil than the plough 

 described above, together with the common harrow with 

 long tines." This is sufficiently suggestive. There can 

 be no doubt that the Yester system is a great fact, and 

 has resulted in an established success ; moreover the 

 result of the closest investigation into its peculiarities 

 can discover nothing which prevents its adoption in 

 other districts. Indeed, the facts established by it 

 afford the strongest argument in favour of the plough 



— when philosophically used — as being in reality the 

 best and cheapest implement which can be used for 

 the cultivation of the'land. Nothing, in our opinion, 

 would tend so forcibly to lead away many minds from 

 attempts to supersede the plough, as the wide adop- 

 tion of the Yester, or some similar system, which seems 

 to afford the best work of which the plough is capable ; 

 and gives the deeply-pulverized seed-bed with inverted 

 furrow, so strenuously insisted upon by all thinking agri- 

 culturists who advocate its use. We are glad to see that 

 attention to this system is becoming widely spread. It 

 certainly does not seem to follow — at least there is no 

 reason to conclude— that these clods and hard nodules of 

 soil should be an invariable concomitant of some, if not 

 the majority, of cultivated soils. One prolific cause, in 

 heavy clay soils, of these clods, is the stirring of the soil 

 while in a wet state. Now in the Yester deep land cul- 

 ture there is a complete cessation of ploughing " from 

 the autumn cross ploughing of the stubble, to the mak- 

 ing up of the land for turnips in spring." The soil re- 

 maining in a pulverized state, the farmer is in a mea- 

 sure independent of the weather both in winter and 

 spring, " as the land can wait for the best weather." 

 There seems then a probability that good thorough 

 cultivation will put and maintain the land in such a 

 state, that many implements which are now considered 

 — and are indeed — essential, may be entirely disused. 

 There is no doubt also that the power of steam applied 

 to the working of cultural implements will tend greatly 

 to prevent the formation of clods and a hardened sur- 

 face, by doing away with the poaching and puddling of 

 the horses' feet. An eminent man once remarked to us, 

 that in view of the simple elementary implements, the 

 plough and the harrow, which were for so long a period 

 considered the only ones essential to secure good 

 cultivation, the long array of complicated machines 

 to be seen at our great agricultural shows was really 

 very puzzling, and was calculated to miike one wonder 

 whether they were really all required or not. It will 

 be odd indeed if experience in cultivation brings us 

 back again to the use of these two implements only, 

 the plough and the harrow ; the experience of the 

 Yester system points at all events to this result. 

 There is such a thing as a variety of machines being 

 necessitated solely by the badness of a system of pro- 

 cedure. 



Broadcast and drill-sowing are now known as re- 

 spectively the " old and the new" school of procedure. 

 There is something thoroughly sound and satisfactory 

 in the principle of a corn drill; and something as 

 sound in the mechanism by which it is carried out. 

 The " swing lever" was just the thing wanted to take 

 the machine out of the category of doubtful, and place 

 it in that of accomplished pieces of mechanism. But the 

 " drill," looked upon by many as the ultimatum of sow- 

 ing machinery, beyond which no progress can be made, 

 is perhaps destined to be rivalled by another machine 

 acting on a different principle. A rising class are now 

 advocating the " dibbling" system as productive of in- 

 finitely higher results than even the drill ; that it is, in 

 fact, as much above this machine in efficiency as the 

 drill is above the broadcast system. If these opinions 

 with reference to the value of the dibbling system gain 

 ground — and there is apparently too much soundness 

 in the principle to allow of its dying away, without 

 gaining a wider trial than it has yet met with— a 

 wide field in which to exercise their ingenuity will be 



