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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



know that many constituents which we found by 

 the ordinary method of analysis present, and which 

 were in an unprogressed condition, should also 

 have been added to these soils, and derived from 

 organic sources. Had our advice included these, 

 the benefits would have been much greater to the 

 required crops. In other words, an analysis of the 

 entire soil progressed and unprogressed, must show 

 the absence of any missing constituent, but of those ; 



reported as present, some may be in an inert con- 

 dition. Thus an analysis of a soil containing fel- 

 spar would give potash, but still the potash con- 

 tained in felspar is not available to plants of a 

 higher order. Before our discoveries in relation to 

 the progression of primaries, we, in common with 

 all other chemists, were in error on this subject to 

 the extent noted above. — Working Farmer, 



FARMING WITHOUT THE PLOUGH. 



Not spade-husbandry, but tillage by horse or steam- 

 worked implements, such as the grubber or "culti- 

 vator," forms the subject of our inquiry into some 

 old-fashioned practices. It is interesting to find (as in 

 our last number) the rudiments of the present Woolston 

 system of husbandry already introduced in the last cen- 

 tury — stubbles cleaned and prepared by a grubber, then 

 manured, and thrown into ridges or baulks by a double 

 mouldboard or trench-plough, a.id beans drilled on the 

 top. And the reasons alleged by those early experi- 

 menters for their enlightened practice were (as we have 

 seen) similar to those which Mr. Smith inculcates : 

 " The plough plants root- weeds, rather than destroying 

 them ; therefore, clean the land by the grubber and 

 skim" — so indispensable a process in preparing bean- 

 stubbles for wheat, that Arthur Young relates the cus- 

 tom in one whole district of hand-hoeing the stubbles, 

 and then drag-raking tljem, the necessary horse- 

 implement not being known there at that time. 



In 1792, "skimming" pea and bean-stubbles, and 

 then once ploughing for wheat, was a newly-introduced 

 practice in Essex; and these crops, horse-hoed and 

 succeeded by such an autumn fallow, were found to be 

 a great gain over the bare fallow, as a preparation for 

 the wheat. Crops soon came to be put in without 

 ploughing at all. In 1798, Mr. Ellman, of Glynde, 

 Sussex, broadshared a pea-stubble, and sowed rape 

 without ploughing. This yielded a great crop of sheep - 

 feed. The piece was then worked for turnips, and 

 these fed off in time for wheat. 



Young, in his " Farmers' Calendar" (1809), says: "If 

 the young farmer has a bean- stubble on which he intends 

 sowing wheat, he should be as early as possible in giving 

 it the due tillage. This will depend on the soil] for on 

 some it will he more advantageous to trust to the 

 shim, scarifiers, and scufflers, than to the plough. If 

 the land is very clean, the great Isle of Thanet skim will 

 cut through everything, and loosen the surface suffi- 

 ciently to enable the farmer to leave it as clean and fine 

 as a garden, women attending to pick and burn. If less 

 clean, the Kentish broadshare may do the work more 

 effectively. In other cases, the scuffler may be equal to 

 the business. When he has got the surface to his mind, 

 he is to consider whether or not he should plough it, 

 which is advisable if the soil be of a firm, solid, tena- 

 cious quality, and if he does not intend to drill the 

 wheat. If he ploughs such a soil, he may not have any 



apprehension of root-fallen wheat, failing roots from a 

 loose bottom ; but he will bring up a new surface, that 

 may drill with difficulty, whereas that which has re- 

 ceived the influences of the crop, atmosphere, and of 

 his late operations, will be in exactly the right temper 

 for the drill to work in. If the soil is of a more loose, 

 friable quality, and he should plough down the fine sur- 

 face he has gained, he will give the wheat too loose a 

 bottom, and he will run the chance of a root-fallen 

 crop. In such cases, he should determine not to 

 plough at all^ but drill directly — a method in which 

 he saves tillage, and has the probability of a better pro- 

 duce. This is a new practice on strong land ; but I 

 have seen such success in it as leaves no reason for 

 doubting the soundness of its principles." In referring 

 to barley after turnips, he says : "The husbandry uni- 

 versal in the kingdom, till very lately, was that of 

 ploughing such land once, twice, or thrice for spring 

 corn. Upon very dry soils the evil was little more than 

 that of a useless expense ; but upon all other soils more 

 stiff and unmanageable, the surface which had been ren- 

 dered friable by the frosts, being turned down, and the 

 more stiff and clayey bottom not influenced in the same 

 manner by those natural agents being brought up, that 

 might also, if very favourable weather ensued, be 

 brought into good order ; but if the season proved the 

 least unfavourable, the farmer could have no chance of 

 obtaining so fine and safe a tilth as the surface was ca- 

 pable of without any such reversal of it by ploughing. 

 The new system is, to apply the scarifiers instead of 

 such ploughing. Mr. Cook's, with his cast-iron beam, 

 or any other heavy enough, is used, the horses walking 

 only in the furrows, and consequently without any 

 trampling of the land. These scarifiers are of different 

 breadths, but all narrow — usually about three inches, or 

 at most four; and they will go as deep as may be 

 thought proper. They ought to stir to the depth to 

 which it would have been ploughed, whether four, five, 

 or six inches. They completely loosen the soil, let 

 down the air to dry it at bottom, give a very good tilth, 

 with the material advantage of not burying that pul- 

 verized surface which frosts have given, and which, if 

 once lost, may not be regained in time for barley. In 

 some cases, one scarifying and two or three harrowings 

 will effect the preparation ; in others, two. . . .This sys- 

 tem has for a few years past been making a rapid pro- 

 gress in Suffolk. . , .The operations go off very quickly, 



