AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. 



419 



UuiStuj^PS\N LED HOOK* 



in tlie annexed cut. In the south part of the State it can be made highly 

 useful in ploughing under weeds. 



The hook is made of a bar 

 of iron, two inches by three- 

 eighths of an inch, and bent. 

 It is fastened with stirrups, as 

 shown. The outer end is so 

 placed that it runs in the open 

 furrow, and draws all the 

 weeds and coi-nstalks into it, 

 so that they are covered by the 

 upturning furrows. For the 

 turning under of a crop of clo- 

 ver, Hungarian grass, or buck- 

 wheat, it is valuable. The lar- 

 gest green weeds can be buried 

 out of sight with its use. It will clog up with dead or loose rubbish. The 

 plants to be turned must have one end fast in the soil. 



The winter wheat is cut about the 1st of June, and the stubble is soon filled 

 with weeds, which grow from four to six feet high before the seeding in Sep- 

 tember. With this weed-hook these weeds can be placed in the bottom of the 

 fun'ow out of sight, Avhere they will soon furnish food for the young wheat 

 plant, instead of being harrowed to the surface, as in the usual mode of plough- 

 ing. Sometimes a hjg-chain is placed on the plough-beam, so as to drag dowH 

 the weeds ; but this is a very imperfect process. We have used this hook with 

 great advantage in turning under cornstalks, especially when partially fed oft" 

 during the winter. In a fallow of dead weeds it will clog up and is useless. 



The double Michigan plough has not come into general use in the west from 

 the fact that it requires an enormous power to move it. No plough so thoroughly 

 pulverizes the soil as this ; but so few of our farmers use ox teams, of which 

 from four to six yoke arc required to run it, that the more practicable mode of 

 xising two ploughs for trench ploughing is preferred. We have used this plough 

 to good advantage in breaking prairie, by setting the upper within two and a. 

 half inches of the lower one, and cutting the turf about one and a half to two 

 inches thick, when it is rolled up like the half of a stove-pipe or scroll over 

 which the lower fun-ow is thrown ; thus making an air space under the turf, 

 which has the 'effect to kill the grass and aerate the inverted soil. The plough- 

 ing can be done early in the spring, or open spells during the winter, when the 

 ground is saturated Avith water. At such times three horses will break two 

 acres a day ; but if the ground is dry, as at the usual time of breaking, the 

 three horses cannot move it at all. We have never had turf so well and quickly 

 rotted as with the above-mentioned Avinter breaking. In this case avc need not 

 wait for the frost to be out of the ground more than to the depth of the plough- 

 ing, as it matters not if the plough runs on the frozen ground, and only turns 

 over the thawed stratum of three or four inches. In this Avay prairie can be 

 broken at a time of comparative leisure, with less team, and in all respects 

 with better restilts than is done during the hot days of July. 



The principal value that we find in this plough is for the above purpose. In 

 preparing land for grape-vines and other deep tillage, we use three teams ; the 

 first runs a common cast-steel clipper eight inches deep ; the second, a deep 

 tiller four inches ; and the third, a Mapes' lifting subsoil plough four inches, 

 breaking and stirring the soil sixteen inches deep. This makes a bed of loose 

 goil of nearly twenty inches, sufticient for all purposes. The furrow slice is cut 

 eight inches wide, and the three teams will thus prepare an acre to an acre 

 and a half per day. 



