GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 433 



Having thus described the general style of ploughing, as it pre 

 vails in England, I come to speak of particular processes which 

 are occasionally practised. 



1. LAPPING IN PLOUGHING. A field of greensward, or stub 

 ble, is often, in the autumn, only half ploughed ; that is, a furrow- 

 slice is turned over directly upon an unploughed surface j and 

 then another furrow is turned upon another unploughed surface, 

 until the whole field, being thus ploughed, presents a succession 

 of open furrows and of lapped lands, and only half of it is in 

 fact stirred. In the spring, these intermediate places are broken 

 up by the process being directly reversed. Some advantage 

 may come, in this case, from the decomposition or rotting of the 

 vegetable matter placed between the two surfaces thus brought 

 together, although this can hardly be expected to proceed at a 

 rapid rate, if at all, during the winter season, and the furrows 

 may serve as drains to carry off the water from the land ; but, ex 

 cepting the saving in time by half doing instead of wholly doing 

 the work, I see no advantage in this process over the regular 

 mode of ploughing the whole field at once. It is advised, how 

 ever, in performing this operation, that the part of the sward 

 which is laid over should be wider than that upon which it is 

 laid, that, by its weight, it may be broken, and the whole ren 

 dered more friable.* 



2. RIBBING, OR RAFTERING. There is another mode of 

 ploughing called ribbing, or raftering, differing scarcely from 

 the method just described, excepting that two furrow-slices are 

 laid upon one. instead of one upon one. In this case, an open 

 furrow and an alternate ridge present themselves over the whole 

 field ; the furrows serve to keep the land from stagnant water, 

 and the turned-up land is exposed to the ameliorating processes of 



* &quot; When land has become very full of twitch, it is a good plan to half-plough 

 it that is, turning over one furrow and then another opposite, to meet it. If this 

 is done in November, it will check the growth of the twitch during the winter. 

 The land, when ploughed in a contrary direction early in the spring, will lie in 

 heaps, and thus become quite dry, when the twitch may easily be got out, and a 

 good turnip fallow be made. Scufflers are now made, which will answer the pur 

 pose of stirring land that has been ploughed, and thus save the labor and ex 

 pense of a ploughing : Finlayson s harrow is a most useful implement&quot; Hill- 

 yard s Practical Farmer. 4th edition, p. 3G. 



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