117 



IMPLEMENTS AND TILLAGE. 



The modern farmer suffers from rather too much good 

 advice, and though he probably takes most of it at its real 

 value, there is no doubt that undue prominence is given in 

 agricultural literature to the use of artificial manures. A 

 season, such as the one we have just passed through, enforces 

 the lesson that good cultivation is by far the most important 

 factor in the successful growth of our farm crops. The 

 researches of agricultural chemists have established rules for 

 the use of manures and feeding stuffs which every farmer 

 must apply in his practice, but in the actual cultivation of the 

 soil we are still working in the dark as far as scientific 

 enlightenment goes. In the last few years mechanical, as 

 distinguished from chemical, analysis of soils has been 

 developed, and has given much useful information, showing 

 how the distribution of the more important crops is perhaps 

 more affected by differences in the texture of the soil than by 

 the more evident factors of climate and rainfall. But we have 

 no scientific standards by which we can measure and classify 

 the different tilths required for various crops, and the success- 

 ful preparation of the soil can only be learnt by long- 

 experience, which fact probably largely accounts for the 

 avoidance of this subject in current literature. 



This being so, each one's ideas on cultivation are necessarily 

 somewhat coloured by the particular usage of his own district, 

 and any attempts to lay down set rules for tillage must be 

 taken with the proviso that, though such rules have been tested 

 on perhaps a large variety of soils, there will be found excep- 

 tions for every rule that can be formulated. 



Though nearly all our modern implements have their 

 l)rototypes in forms in use a hundred years and more ago, the 

 sum which a twentieth century arable farmer has to allot to 

 dead stock is very much greater than was formerly required. 

 A hundred years ago most farms were fully stocked with the 

 larger implements if they had ploughs, harrows, and waggons. 

 Now the great manufacturers of implements are continually 

 evolving new types and improving old ones, and the farmer 

 who wishes to be up to date in his machinery would find that 

 to test even a tithe of the latest models would cause a very 

 heavy drain on his capital. It may be of interest to consider 

 some of the more recent developments in tillage implements 

 and how they have affected tillage operations. 



The Plough. — Compai-ed with the great changes and 

 improvements in machinery for other purposes than agricul- 

 ture — milling, printing, textile trades, t^'C. — it is remarkable 

 what slight changes we find in modern ploughs when compared 



