PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 281 



had rendered him unfit to live. The " carrion old crow" is never 

 allowed to die, even in this land of death. Because the Creator 

 endowed him with a taste for eggs and chickens, relentless and 

 unforgiving men and boys refuse to let him live and die. 



"The way of birds is filled with slaughter, carnage and barba- 

 rity. Cruel and blood-thirsty foes follow the whole feathered 

 tribe with instruments of death ; and, before they have fairly 

 spread their pinions to fly, or poured their first song from the 

 mellow throat, they drop, are gone, and soon forgotten." 



Will Deep Plowing Spoil Land ? 



Mrs. T. A. Frost, Indian Eiver, Lewis county, N. Y., says; "I 

 have an old pasture, gravelly loam and quite stony, which I wish 

 to plow this fall, to plant in hops next spring. The old settlers 

 say that deep plowing (six or seven inches), will spoil it. How 

 deep for hops should I plow? Would it be better to seed with 

 clover preparatory to planting hops? Will it pay to use salt at 

 |4 per barrel?" 



Mr. Solon Eobinson. — No ground is fit for hop planting that is 

 not plowed nearly twice as deep as you mention, although hops 

 will grow where the soil is rich if skimmed over in the manner 

 we presume it is by the old farmers who advise you not to plow 

 deep; yet land that never has been plowed over two inches deep 

 will not produce well the first season if turned over six. But it 

 will be greatly benefited by plowing it four and subsoiling it six 

 more. Next year turn it six inches, and run the subsoil plow six 

 inches deeper still, and you will find that deep plowing has not 

 spoiled your land, for land cannot be plowed too deep nor too 

 often, though it is true it may be injured hy plowing too deeply 

 at first with a turning plow, which piles the cold subsoil so deeply 

 upon the mold that some crops would ])e injured. 



Clover would be a good preparation for hop ground. Proba- 

 bly it would not pay to use salt at that price for ordinary farming. 



Adjourned. 



December 4, 1866. 

 Prof. S. D. Tillman in the chair ; John W. Chambers, Sec'y. 



Fifer's Gang Plow. 

 Mr. E. H. Phillips exhibited a model of Fifer's patent gang- 

 plow, manufactured at Trenton, New Jersey. A gang of plow- 



