GENERAL RULES TOR PLOUGHING. 427 



LXXXI. GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 



The depth of ploughing, the width of the furrow-slice, the 

 number of ploughings which should be given to land, arid the 

 season at which it should be executed, depend on such a variety 

 of circumstances, that it would be difficult to prescribe any uni 

 versal rules. 



The objects of ploughing are, to loosen the soil, and to render 

 it permeable to the roots of plants, that they may extend them 

 selves for nourishment and support ; to make it accessible to the 

 air and rain, from which, according to modem theories, it gathers 

 both oxygen and ammonia, for the food of plants ; and, lastly, to 

 give an opportunity of incorporating manures with the soil, for 

 their support and growth. It has another object, of course, 

 where greensward is turned over, which is, to bury the herbage 

 then on the ground, and substitute other plants. 



The depth of ploughing varies in different soils, and for dif 

 ferent purposes. The average depth may be considered as five 

 inches, but no direction on this subject will be found universally 

 applicable. Three of the most eminent practical farmers with 

 whom I am acquainted here plough not more than three inches ; 

 but the surface mould, in these cases, is very thin, and the under 

 stratum is a cold, clammy chalk. One farmer, whose cultivation 

 ic successful, and who cultivates &quot; a light, poor, thin, moory 

 soil, with a subsoil of either blue or white clay, peat, or white 

 gravel,&quot; carefully avoids breaking up the cold subsoil, and cuts 

 up the sward with a breast-plough, which is a kind of paring 

 spade ; and, after burning the turf, and spreading the ashes with 

 a due application of artificial manure, consisting of equal quan 

 tities of lime, wood and turf ashes, at the rate of sixty bushels 

 to the acre, and sowing turnip-seed, cultivates between the rows 

 with a single horse-plough, which cannot, of course, take a deep 

 furrow. The second year of the course, when he sows wheat, 

 he ploughs it very lightly with a horse, after having first breast- 

 ploughed it, so as thoroughly to cover in the manure which the 

 sheep who have been folded upon the land have left upon it. 

 The third year it is breast-ploughed, sown in turnips, and culti 

 vated between the rows with a horse, as before described. The 



