PLOWING 61 
One enterprising farmer in the Lima Bean belt of 
California, after studying his soil concluded it was a 
mistake to merely scratch the surface as most farmers 
were doing. So he put his plows down twelve inches 
and got under the hard soil underlying the usual plowed 
surface. 
By plowing this depth he gave his beans double depth 
for their roots to grow and get nourishment. This they 
could not have gotten in a shallow seed bed. He 
almost doubled his crop. 
A demonstration of plowing to a depth of twelve to 
fifteen inches in the Yazoo Delta, Louisiana, in 1906, 
without the use of fertilizers, increased the yield of 
corn from fourteen to seventy bushels per acre. 
And numerous demonstrations and experiments of 
deep plowing throughout the South, made within the 
last few years, have led to the conclusion that deep 
plowing supplemented with drainage and plenty of or- 
ganic matter, is the true method of building up and 
maintaining soil fertility. 
In ancient times the Romans plowed to an average 
depth of nine inches. 
The Flemish farmers plowed deep, and the chief 
stone in England’s foundation for an improved agricul- 
ture was deep plowing and soil pulverization. 
The Orangeburg fine sandy loams found within the 
Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains from Southeastern 
North Carolina to West Central Texas, are freed to a 
great extent from the danger of erosion by deeper plow- 
ing supplemented with the use of organic matter. 
For years it was the custom to plow these sandy 
