GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 435 



increase of them as is described in Von Thaer s Agriculture, 

 which has been recently translated into English, and published 

 in two volumes in London. &quot; In places,&quot; says this author, 

 &quot; where, as is frequently the case, there have been no ditches 

 between the lands of different proprietors, or where these ditches 

 have been filled up for the sake of gaining additional surface, all 

 the ploughmen have avoided throwing the earth to the outside, 

 from fear that, if they did so, their neighbor might carry off that 

 which was thus placed within his reach. In this manner, ridges 

 of considerable breadths have become elevated in the middle to such 

 a degree, that two men, walking in the parallel furrows which 

 bound them, will not be able to see each other&quot; * This seems 

 to be a regular piece of Munchausen j and if all book agricul 

 ture were of this description, one could hardly be surprised at 

 some little incredulity and distaste on the part of common prac 

 tical farmers. 



The advantages of laying land in this form, in cases where 

 land is wet and heavy, or where the rain does not pass off readily, 

 are obvious. Where the ridges or beds, likewise, are made 

 equal, and with care, the ridges and furrows furnish a conve 

 nient measurement of land in sowing, reaping, or harvesting. 

 There is a considerable loss of land in the furrows, where the 

 beds are, as in some cases, made very narrow, as for example when 

 formed of ten furrow-slices, and two furrow-slices are taken for 

 the drain, the amount of land taken for the drains will be equal 

 to one sixth of the whole, or one acre in six a very considerable 

 loss, it must be admitted ; but then, in every system of ploughing, 

 there must be open furrows left at the sides, if not in the centre, 

 of the fields ; and where the beds are large, as described above, 

 throwing, for example, four common beds of fifteen feet each, so 

 as to form one of sixty feet, the loss by open furrows would be 

 greatly reduced. In countries subject to much snow, arid severe 

 frosts, it is objected that, the snow being naturally blown from 

 the elevated into the lower parts of the field, the ridge, or highest 

 part of the bed, is more exposed to the alternations of freezing 

 and thawing, and so the grain plants on the ridge are liable to be 



* Principles of Agriculture, by Von Thaer, vol. ii. p. 84, as translated from 

 the French by those two most intelligent and industrious agricultural writers, 

 William Shaw and Cuthbert W. Johnson, Esquires. 



