194 Progress of Agricultural Knowledge 



term — relative to the soil, to the crop, and also to the climate. 

 In part of Norfolk, according to Loudon, '' they plough with two 

 or four horses very shallow, carefully preserving the hard basis 

 formed by the sole of the plough, which is called the pan of the 

 land ; breaking this up is said to let down the riches into the hun- 

 gry subsoil.'' One of our members, Mr. A. Edmunds, who has 

 long farmed 200 acres of peaty land in Gloucestershire, tells me 

 that he always ploughed it shallow, and that for wheat he did not 

 stir it at all, but skimmed it only with a breast-plough. The sum- 

 mers there are probably hotter than in Lincolnshire, where peat is 

 ploughed deeper. Near Coblentz, on the Rhine, where the 

 summers are very burning, it is stated that the farmers only 

 scratch the ground with a one-horse plough, because they find 

 deeper ploughing injurious. I dwell on this point the more be- 

 cause high authorities in Scotland unite in recommending not 

 only deep ploughing but trench-ploughing, that is with one 

 plough following another in the same furrow, and throwing up 

 the subsoil on the surface from the depth of a foot. This may 

 be useful where the surface is light and the subsoil is a good 

 clay, and it may be less dangerous to make the ground so hollow 

 where rain falls constantly, and the land is seldom very dry ; but, 

 apart from the looseness produced, I should think that, as Mr. 

 Denison observes, " in very few cases is the soil underneath more 

 fitted for vegetation than that of the surface ;" * and I believe 

 such an operation would be destructive on many of our southern 

 farms. 



The use of the plough may be sometimes even dispensed with 

 altogether, by means of a class of implements on wheels, with 

 teeth or tines that tear up the land. One of them is Biddell's 

 scarifier, which I believe to be a good working tool, because I see 

 many farmers purchase it, and because one of my own I constantly 

 find has been borrowed by my neighbours. A Suffolk farmer 

 states ■]■ that '' by the use of this implement he can equally well 

 cultivate his farm with 12 per cent, less of horses.'' Lord Ducie's 

 cultivator is also well spoken of, and our Bristol judges commend 

 another by Messrs. Cottam. They likewise speak highly of a 

 Warwickshire plough with slicers behind, which pulverise the soil 

 like a harrow. If this simple contrivance of Mr. Mason's should 

 answer, it will be a remarkable discovery; but time and use must 

 show its merits or its defects, and the soils to which it can be 

 applied. 



The land being worked, we may proceed to the crop. The 

 sower, with his accurate hand and eye, is now seldom seen ; but 

 I am unable to detail the various modes of spreading the seed 



* Journal, ii. p. 32. 

 Ibid., vol. i. p. 348. Account of the use of Biddell's Scarifier. 



