PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. ] 73 



PRIZES OFFERED. 



Mr. Carpenter read a communication from the Board of 

 Managers of the American Institute, announcing that they had 

 determined to refer the award of medals at the next exhibition 

 to the Polj'technic Association and Farmers' Club, and communi- 

 cating a list of the subjects to be assigned to the Farmers' Club 

 for consideration. 



Adjourned. 



Octoler 28, 18G1. 

 Prof. Cyrus Mason in the chair. 



PLOWS AND PLOWING. 



Prof. Nash. — This subject is old and trite, but not unimportant. 

 Great improvements have been made in the art of preparing the 

 soil for the crops ; but have we yet attained the best possible 

 practice ? I think not. Fifty years ago it might have been said 

 with truth, that man's power over the soil had been doubled 

 since Virgil, two thousand years before, wrote his description of 

 the best plow of his time. Within the last fifty years, man's 

 power over the soil has been doubled again. It has been more 

 than doubled by improved implements, if we are to judge solely 

 by his present ability to effect a complete overturning of the soil ; 

 for we can go over more than two acres to our fathers' one. But if 

 we look also at the influence of their plowing and of ours upon the 

 fertility of the soil, the comparison will stand differently, and we 

 shall find that we have not gained as much as we had supposed. 

 While we can stir more than twice as much soil in a day, we can 

 not show practical paying results in a like proportion. I am not 

 a believer in the correctness of the universal practice of turning 

 the furrow slice upside down to any depth we choose to plow, on 

 all lands and for all crops. In the time of Abraham, the plow 

 was probably a little more than a section of a small tree with 

 one limb projecting forward at an angle of 45 deg., cut perhaps 

 to the length of one foot, to enter the ground, armed at the end 

 with a sort of iron thimble terminating in a point, and another 

 limb on the opposite side to be bent backwards and to serve for 

 a handle. The effect of such a plow would be not to invert the 

 soil, but by long continued patient labor, to loosen and mix it. 

 Precisely such would be the effect of the plow described by Vir- 

 gil, who lived midway between Abraham and our time. The 



